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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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TOM'S EXPERIENCE 



DAKOTA: 

WHY HE WENT ; WHAT HE DID THERE ; WHAT CROPS 

HE RAISED, AND HOW HE RAISED THEM ; WHAT 

THEY COST HIM, AND WHAT HE RECEIVED 

FOR THEM; AND ALL ABOUT HIS UPS AND 

DOWNS, SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. 

HIS TALKS WITH OLD FRIENDS, 

AND HIS ADVIOE TO THEM ABOUT \ ' 

GOING WEST. 

WHO OUGHT TO GO, AND WHO OUGHT NOT; WHAT MEN 

AND WOMEN WITH MONEY AND WITH NONE CAN 

DO THERE; WHY SOME SUCCEED, AND OTHERS 

DO NOT ; WITH PRACTICAL INFORMATION 

FOR ALL CLASSES OF PEOPLE WHO 

WANT HOMES IN THE WEST, 

POINTING OUT PLAINLY 

THE WAY TO SUOOESS; 

- • -'/.-^^ 

MINNEAPOLIS, MIN^. : "^ 3 ^i> "^ ^ 

Miller, Hale & Co., Publishers. 

1883. 





.\ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1883, by 

A. P. MILLER, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 






StereotypcMi nni\ Priiitod at th« 

Tiibuiif Book Kdomi:*. 

Minneapylts, Minnesota. 



PREFACE. 

There is no lack of literature concerning the West. 
Let any one make an inquiry of some railroad or land 
company, real estate firm or immigration bureau, for 
information about the West, and he will be supplied 
with letters, circulars and pamphlets till he is sur- 
feited. And after reading these, each one asks the 
questions : 

"What could / do there? Could / succeed as 
these documents say others have done? '' 

And then, after asking these and similar questions, 
these seekers after truth say : 

" If 1 could only sit down for an hour or two and 
have a plain, neighborly talk with somebody who has 
lived there for a few years, who would tell me truly 
all about his successses and failures, his ups and downs, 
and of whom I could ask questions as he told his 
story, I could learn more tliat I earnestly desire to 
know in two hours from such a talk than I could in 
a year from reading these circulars and pamphlets." 

(iii) 



£^ PREFACE. 

This book honestly aims to give these earnest 
inquirers such information as they would get in a con- 
versation of that kind. Besides being a lecord of 
four years' experience in Dakota, it reports carefully, 
not one, but many, just such conversations with peo- 
ple of different classes — the capitalist, the man with- 
out money, the mechanic, the widow, the tenant of 
another man's land, and others, and answers conscien- 
tiously the numerous questions they ask. 

From first page to last^ the writer has had a con- 
sttientious regard for the best interests of those who 
are seeking inforiuation, with the view of bettering 
their condition and prospects in life. 



^a\^ 



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CONTENTS. 



PAOE. 

A NEIGHBORLY CALL 9 

A LITTLE INVENTORY 16 

A MISTAKE 26 

A MORTGAGE 32 

A GLOOMY OUTOOOK 33 

A CALL FROM THE SHERIFF 34 

A LAND SHARK 35 

A VISITOR FROM ILLINOIS 44 

A SURPRISE 46 

A woman's INTUITIONS 54 

About certain family expensses 62 

A business talk with Mr. Bright 65 

About big crops 83 

And Satan came also 89 

A talk with a mechanic 90 

An answer to a newspaper 94 

A FARM and what TO DO WITH IT 95 

a problem 102 

Annie and the babies 119 

Backsetting 22 

Business talks 49 

Balancing the books 61 

Back to the old home 74 

Blizzards 80 

Concerning moss 12 

Counting up resources 36 

Cattle 53 

Cancelling the mortgage 63 

Choice of land 97 

Could I do that ? Ill 

Does not cure everybody 85 

(v) 



yi CONTENTS. 

DiSCOUBAGED 100 

Expenses and balance 25 

Extended plans 28 

Friendly regrets 13 

Fifty-three years' work 17 

Furnishing the new house 125 

Grasshoppers and drouth 1^ 

His pound of flesh 35 

Helping sod crops ^"^ 

Harvesting and threshing 58 

Helping people to help themselves 65 

Hints to capitalists "^3 

How to make a boy love farming 120 

In our own home 20 

Illustrating a case 67 

Illinois hospitality 75 

Interview with a mechanic 90 

James Hardy ^ 

Land agents 1° 

Looking at "Tom's Folly " 49 

Making the home pleasant 21 

Mr. Samuels "^^ 

Mr. Bright makes A proposition 49 

Mr. Bright's quarter-sections 75 

My friend Snyder 79 

Not exactly a paradise 10 

Nine hundred dollars short 37 

No LONGER A TENANT 71 

Newspapers ^ 

No ^9 

Personal 15 

plannnng and locating 17 

Planting trees 20 

Progress 27 

Pride vs. Prudence 30 

Pbide goeth before a fall 33 



co.vrEyTs. vii 

Putting in the crops 5G 

People who ought not to go west 87 

Resources and liabilities 50 

Retrospection 63 

Railroad land. 96 

Some of the hardships 12 

Sod crops ; 17 

Spring work 24 

Some plans for the future 51 

Seekers after truth 90 

Some of my mistakes 12T 

The freezing point 9 

Taking a risk 11 

The summer's crops 24 

Temptation 29 

"Tom's Folly" 34 

The reason why 38 

The sheriff's sale 39 

The buyer 41 

Talking it over 42 

The mortgage renewed 54 

There's money in it .60 

The tenant's side 70 

They want backing 71 

The drouth 84 

The people who are there 88 

Well-to-do — for tenants 16 

Winter's work 23 

Woman's work 27 

What was left 43 

Will it pay ? 67 

Where there's a will there's a way 101 

Was it best ? 107 

What a woman can do 112 

What a boy can do 119 

What Mrs. Sanford did about it 123 

What other women can do 124 



TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

DAKOTA. 



A NEIGHBORLY CALL. 

ik /^OOD morning, Tom. I hear you are going to 
VJ Dakota next spring. Ts it true? " 
'' Yes. 1 have made up my mind to go and see if 1 
can't get a farm of my own. I have been working 
for other people as long as I care to." 

"Well, it seems to me you had better let well 
enough alone. You are comfortably fixed here, and 
can get all the land yon want to farm on shares, and 
in the course of time get a farm of your own." 

''Yes, I am doing well as things go here; that is^ 
I am making a living and a little more each year^ 
but as for my getting any land of my own here, 
where it is worth from eighty to a hundred dollars an 
acre, I would stand a good chance of dying of old age 
before I could get enough for a farm." 

THE FREEZING POINT. 

''But you and your family will freeze to death in 
Dakota. Why. only yesterday I saw in the paper that 

(9) " 



10 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

the mercury was down to thirty degrees below zero 
out there. Just think of that! It's cold enough 
here for me, and if I move at all it will be further 
south. In Dakota the winters are so long that it 
will take all a man can make in the short summer to 
su]>port him over winter. Have you thought of these 
tilings?'' 

''Certainly; I have thought of them all. This is 
no sudden notion of mine. I have been thinking of 
it for years, and all that has prevented me from going 
before is that I did not know where to go. I have 
investigated the matter as carefully as possible, and- 
weighed the pros and cons with my very best judg- 
ment, and believe I can do well in Dakota^ and 1 am 
going there the coming spring. 1 am not afraid of 
thp cold winters. 

JfOT EXACTLY A PAIIADISE. 

" I don't expect to find a paradise in Dakota. I 
have no doubt it is a good deal colder there sometimes 
than it is here, and the winters are longer, too. I 
have been watching the weather reports from there, 
not only this winter, but for several winters past, and 
have noticed that the mercury does get down pretty 
low at times, and if I could have everything just 
a,s I would like I would prefer a milder climate 
and shorter winters. But if I should go where those 
conditions prevailed, I would find other disadvantages 
which I think are greater than those of the severe cli- 
mate of Dakota. And. besides, people who live there 



/.V DAKOTA. 11 

say the air is so dry that they do not feel the cold as 
much as they used to when they lived where the mer- 
cury seldom or never got down to zero. There are a 
good many people out there who are pleased with the 
country and are making money, and if my good 
health continues I think I can do as well as any of 
them. I am tired of this thing of raising crops and 
giving half of iJliem for the use of the land I raise 
them on. Out there I shall have land of my own, 
and all that I raise on it will be mine. I regret to 
leave my friends here, of course, but in these days of 
railroads it is not much of a journey from Illinois to 
Dakota, and I shall try to deserve good friends out 
there, and presume I shall have them in time." 

TAKING A RISK. 

" Yes, I have no doubt you will. But, really, it does 
seem to me that you're taking a good deal of a risk in 
leaving a good place here, among your old friends and 
acquaintances, who have known you all your life, and 
who would do anything in their power for you, and 
where you are not only making a good living, but lav- 
ing up something every year, and going out there on 
the frontier, where you may have no neighbors 
nearer than four or five miles, and if you do raise any 
crops it will cost you more than they are worth to get 
them to market. Why, you may not have a railroad 
within thirty to fifty miles of you. Remember, Tom, 
that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. 
YouVe got your bird in hand here in the shape of a 



12 lOM'S EXPERIENCE 

comfortable home. Now, I ask if it isn't better to 
hold on to that bird than to go away out West, five 
hundred miles or more, in the hope of catching a big- 
ger and fatter one? A rolling stone gathers no 
moss." 

CONCERNING MOSS. 

•' That old saying is good enough in some cases^ 
but I've never been a rolling stone. I've lived all my 
life in this county, most of it in this township, and 
if '' moss " means money, you know I haven't gath- 
ered very much of it. I think I might probably have 
had more if I had done a little more ^^ rolling." And 
the bird whicli I have in hand is a very small one 
and quite lean. I think I won't have much trouble 
in catcbing a bigger and fatter one on the Dakota 
prairies. At any rate^ I propose trying. I don't be- 
lieve in people changing locations very often^ nor 
ever without good reason. But there are times in 
the lives of many people when they might change 
with great advantage. 1 think that time has come in 
my life." 

SOME OF THE HAEDSHIPS. 

'' But have you thought of the hardships you and 
your family must endure out there? You have the 
reputation of being a very kind man to your family, 
and I will say I think you deserve it. But it does 
seem to me that in this matter you do not take them 
into the account. You will have no schools for your 
children, nor churches within many miles of you, and 
your wife and children will die of homesickness." 



JX DAKOTA. 13 

EASIER TO WORK OUK OWN LAND. 

'' My wife and 1 have talked that over a good many 
times, and she is really more anxious to go than I am, 
if there is any difference. We shall probably both 
he a little homesick at first, and we expect some hard- 
ships and privations, and so will not be disappointed 
when they come. Neighbors and schools and 
churches will all come in time. And we don't think 
it will be quite so hard to do the same amount of 
work on our own land, as it is here on that which we 
don't own, and can never expect to." 

SOME FRIENDLY REGRETS. 

'' Pardon me, Tom, but I think you are making a 
serious mistake, and that's why I am so earnest in 
this matter. It may seem to be none of my busi- 
ness^ but you know we've been neighbors, boy and 
man, twenty years or more, and I can't see you make 
such a mistake without using what influence T 
may have to try and prevent it. And just about all 
your friends are of the same opinion.'' 

''Are they? What do they say about it? " 
'•Well. I was talking to Squire McCreary last 
evening, and he thinks you'll be back here in less 
than two years, a good deal poorer than you are now. 
He thinks that between the drouth and the grasshop- 
pers you can't raise enough out there to live on. And 
John Richards came up just then, and said if he 
were as comfortably fixed as you are, he wouldn't 
pull up and go to Dakota for the best section of land 



14 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

in the Territory, with a house and barn on it. And 
you know Sam Bright is considered one of the most 
level-headed men about here, and and he joined in 
and said he hoped you wouldn't go, for if you did 
you'd be almost sure to regret it, and he would be 
sorry to see you make such a mistake. And he is one 
of the best friends you've got." 

''If I was as well fixed as the Squire and Mr. 
Bright — owned good farms as they do, and had plenty 
of money besides — I don't think I'd go, either. But 
as I am not so fortunate as to own a farm here, and 
probably never could, I propose to go where 1 can." 

GRASSHOPPERS AN^D DROUTH. 

'' And take the chances of the grasshoppers and the 
drouth?" 

" Yes, and all other chances. There have been no 
grasshoppers there for some years, and may never be 
again; and, although there have been one or two 
short crops on account of drouth, there has never 
been a failure. And counting in those years you wiU 
find that the average crops were larger than they 
have been right here. I may not succeed out there. 
I cannot see any farther into the future than you and 
the rest of my friends; but I shall make a hard fight 
for success, anyway." 

'' Well, Tom, I see you are fully determined to go. 
We're awfully sorry, though, to have you leave this 
neighborhood, and wherever you go I know you'll 
have the best wishes of all your old neighbors here." 



/,V DAKOTA. 15 

•^ Thank yo\i.aiid I ho}H' always to deservf* tlieiu.'' 

This conversation took place one clear, cold iiioni- 

ing m January, 1879, in front of my house — or rwWwv 

the house I was living in, for I was only a tenant — on 

a large farm in Central Illinois. 

A FEW WORDS FERSOXAL. 

Fm Tom — Thomas Taylor, when written in full. " 
The man I was talking with was Jason Moore, a ten- 
ant on an adjoining farm. T had been l)r()nght up in 
that neighborhood, and had worked all my life on a 
farm. I had^ during my boyhood, gone to tlie district 
school three or four months in the winter, and had 
tried to make the most of these rather meager educa- 
tional advantages. T wrote a fair hand, and was 
pretty well up in geography, grammar and arithmetic. 
My last winter at school I tackled algebra, and, hav- 
ing considerable taste for mathematics, managed to get 
about half-way through Davies' First Lessons without 
the help of a teacher, as our teacher that winter— 
though one of the best I ever had — never had studied 
algebra at all, and so could give me no assistance in 
it. My success in algebra came near changing the 
whole current of my life, for it set me seriously think- 
ing of trying to get a term or two in the Greenfield 
Academy, and from thence into the study of the hiw. 
l^ut the spring woi-k came on and soon drove these 
professional notions out of my head. 

Perhaps it is as well. Yet there often comes to me 
a great longing for the mental training a college 



IQ TOM'S EXPEJtIEXCE 

course — or even a couple of years in tlieold Academy 
under good old Doctor Williams — would have given 
me. I would not change my farmer's life to-day for 
a professional one, but I can t see why a college 
course isn't as good for a farmer as a lawyer. 

WELL-TO-DO — FOR TENANTS. 

At the time the conversation above reported took 
place I was in my thirt3^-first year, and had been mar- 
ried six years and had two children. Those six years 
had been spent on that farm; my wife and I had 
both worked hard and economized as closely as we 
knew how, and at that time were considered pretty 
well off and well-to-do, for tenants. 

But we were both tired of being tenants, and for a 
good while had been seriously thinking of going 
West and trying there to make a home of our own. 

A LITTLE INVENTORY. 

Wliile we were considered by our acquaintances well 
off— for tenants — our worldly possessions seemed to 
lis rather meager for six years of hard work and close 
economy. They consisted principally of the follow- 
ing: 

Household furniture, about $250 00 

Four good work horses 400 00 

Four head of cattle 100 00 

Six head of hogs 50 00 

Farming implements, about 350 00 

Money in bank 850 00 

Total 12,000 00 



IS DAI*i)T.[., 17 

When we were married I had two horses and $350 
in money— total $550., Deducting this from the 
$2,000, leaves $1,450 as the net result of our six 
years' work— about $240 a year. 

FIFTY-THREE YEARS' WORK. 

I was not satisfied with this. Land in that vicinity 
was worth, on an average, $80 an acre, so that my 
net profits were just three acres per year. At this 
rate, it would take me about fifty-three years to earn 
a farm of 160 acres. This outlook was not satisfac- 
tory, and I think the reader will not blame me for 
being dissatisfied with it. The advice of my neigh- 
bors to ^'let well enough alone" was honestly given 
and well meant,, and generally it is good advice. 
But $240 a year for two industrious, hard-working 
people is not " well enough." 

PLANNING AND LOCATING. 

I did not decide to go to Dakota without careful 
consideration, and as much investigation as I could 
make, and having decided I set about making prepara- 
tions for the change. I need not enter into details, 
further than to say that as I had not exactly fixed 
on a location I thought best to leave my family in 
Illinois, and, taking three of my horses, go out my- 
self, select my land, do as much breaking as I could 
during the season for that work, build a house, and 
then return for my family. 

I started in April (1 thiuk it was the 4th), and 



IP TOM'S nXPKniKXCE 

spent three weeks in examining the conutry. T took 
a homestead of 160 acres, and adjoining it a tree 
claim of 160 more. 

LA XI) AftENTS. ' 

T do not give my exact location nor my real name^ 
because 1 know that I should be overrun with letters 
of inquiry, which I have not the time to answer I 
am not in the real estate business, further than to 
cultivate that which I possess to the best of my abil- 
ity, and that takes all my time. There are plenty 
of good men in every town and village who will bp 
glnd U) give inquirers any information they may 
want. They are generally well posted and trust- 
worthy. There are some *' land sharks '' in the busi^ 
ness, it is true, but not so many as is generally sup- 
posed. 

As a rule, it is better to see your land, if possible, 
or liave some reliable friend see it for you, before 
buynig a deeded tract or locating a claim on govern- 
ment land. If this is not practicable, you need not 
have any difficulty in getting the address of a reliable 
man, to whom you can entrust the business. 

T may add, that, at that time the nearest railroad 
station was twenty-three miles distant. I could not 
get government land any nearer the railroad than 
that. There was " talk," however, of a road being 
built, which would run within a couple of miles of 
my claims. This has since been done, and I am now 
three miles from a railroad station and good village^ 



7.V DAKOTA. jg 

GETTING TO WORK. 

Having secured my claims, I at once set to work 
breaking the sod. 

Half a mile away was my nearest neighbor, with 
whom I boarded — that is, I took my meals there and 
slept in a tent on my claim. I pushed my breaking 
vigorously, aad by hiring some help got ninety acres 
broken during the season. 

I had not, at that time, much confidence in sod 
crops, but at the persuasion of my neighbor tried the 
experiment, and it was successful beyond my highest 
expectations. 

SOD CROPS. 

T put 20 acres in corn, 15 in oats, 10 in flax, and 3 
in potatoes. My corn averaged 21 basliels to the 
acre, oats 28, flax 9, and potatoes 86. My corn, at 
the then prevailing price, was worth $147, oats $2 10" 
flax $90, and potatoes $109; total, $556. I paid out 
for seed and for hired help and board, in planting, 
gathering and marketing these crops, and for assist- 
ance in breaking, $263, leaving me a margin of $293 
profit, an average of $6 per acre. Of course, [ did 
not realize all this in cash, for a part of the corn ai» ( 
oats I fed to my horses, but I could have had the 
cash for it, and so it is correct to credit the land 
with it. 

I was more than satisfied with this result, and do 
not hesitate to recommend to other new settlers to 
cultivate as much of their sod in crops as possible. 



20 TOM'S EXPKIilENCE 

The only investment of money required is for seed, 
and the only labor is the planting and gathering of 
the crops — no cultivation being required. My success 
with sod crops has always been good. 

PLANTING TREES. 

As soon as possiljle I selected a site for my house, 
and during the spring got nearly one handred young 
trees, which I planted around the building site for 
future shade. I had heard that trees could not be 
made to grow if planted in sod, but this is a mistake, 
provided proper care is taken in the planting. First 
take the sod off to the depth of three or four inches 
over a circle, three or four feet in diameter: then, with 
a spade, thoroughly loosen the earth to the depth of 
eighteen inches: plant your trees a proper depth in 
this loose earth, jjacking it carefully around the roots, 
and they will grow as well as if planted in old 
cultivated ground. After planting, cultivate them 
very much as you would a hill of corn, occasionally 
loosening the earth around them, and if the weather 
is dry giving them water in the evening. Of coui-se, 
this takes some extra work, but if you could see the 
beautiful shade trees around my house now, you 
would say that it paid better than the same amount 
of work would have done in the wheat or corn field. 

IN OUR OWN HOME. 

During the summer 1 had built a house, small, but 
warm and comfortable, and situated so that when I 



IX DAKOTA. 21 

got ready I could build a larger one in front of and 
connected with it. It cost me $344. I also built a 
sod barn, with a small granary at one end of it, which 
cost me f>68, and dug a well at a cost of $12. 

In September I returned to Illinois for my family, 
and we reached our new home in Dakota the first 
week in October. 

It was a beautiful evening, and although we were 
all tired after our twenty-three miles ride in a com- 
mon farm wagon, yet the pleasure we enjoyed in feel- 
ing that we were in our own home, and on our own 
land, can only be understood by those who have had 
a similar experience. 

Our furniture, what we had, was plain and cheap, 
and as yet nothing was in order; but it was our home^ 
and as such it was to us the sweetest spot on earth. 
We had as yet no cooking stove, so I kindled a fire 
out in the yard, and my wife prepared supper. Of 
course, it was a simple and very plain meal, but we 
all enjoyed it more than we could have done the most 
sumptuous feast in a house that was not our own. 

MAKIi^^G THE HOME PLEASANT. 

It would make this paper too long to go into de- 
tail as to my operations, but I will give such an out- 
line as may be of value to others in making homes 
in the Northwest. 

The first thing I did was to make my home as 
cheerful and comfortable as possible. I expected 
cold weather during the winter, and prepared for it 



22 TOM':S EXtBBIENCE 

before it came. I added such articles of furniture t©- 
the somewhat limited supply we had brought with us 
as seemed necessary for our comfort in any kind of 
weather. I laid in a sufficient supply of fuel for any 
emergency. During the warm days of the fall we 
used very little of this, for we found that with a lit- 
tle preparation, in the way of twisting and tying in 
knots, we could make prairie hay answer the pur- 
pose, and the cost was very small. And so we saved 
onr fuel for colder weather. 

And right here is as good a place as any for me to 
say a few words of simple justice to my good wife, 
to whose brd,ve heart, wise counsels, and cheerful 
bearing I owe so much. How much she did with our 
meager stock of furniture to make our little home 
bright and cheerful; how bravely she labored, and 
with what courage she met all discouragements and 
reverses, I have not words to express. She has been 
more than a helpmeet, and to her is largely due the 
credit for whatever success has attended us here. 
Her work was hard, for help could not always be had 
when needed; but she did it bravely and cheerfully, 
and with never a word of complaining. I suppose 
she was homesick sometimes — it wo ild be but natural 
— but if so, the feeling was hidden beneath a bright 
smile or a cheery song. In our home there was 
always sunshine. 

BACKSETTING. 

As soon as possible I went to work backsetting the 
ground I had broken in the summer, and with some 



IX DAKOTA. 23 

help, which I procured at $1.50 per acre, got it all 
done but about ten acres before the winter set in. I 
had been told that backsetting would not pay, but all 
my experience proves this to be a mistake. The 
more thoroughly the ground is prepared in the fall, 
the better the crops will be. There is no exception 
to this rule. 

winter's avork. 

During the winter I hired a carpenter for about ten 
days, and with his help built a '' lean to " alongside 
my house for use as a summer kitchen, and a small 
milk house by the well. The latter was simply a 
cheap frame with a good roof, and boarded up with 
the cheapest lumber. In the spring I sodded the 
sides, and my wife planted some rapid-growing vines 
all around it, and early in the summer it was com- 
pletely covered with vines and flowers, and even in the 
hottest weather was delightfully cool inside. 

I also built another granary, to be ready for the 
■crops I hoped to raise the coming year. And there 
were a good many little things that I did to make the 
house and its surroundings pleasant and convenient. 
There are literally thousands of such things that (tnj/ 
man with a hammer, saw and plane, a little lumber 
and some nails, can do, if he ivill^ which will add 
largely to the comfort and convenience of his family, 
and the beauty of his home. There are man^^ de- 
lightful days here during the winter, when such 
work can be done, and I have no patience with the 
man who will lazily lie around his house during the 



24 TOM'S^ EXPEJilEycE 

wintor; or, what is worse, spend the time loafing 
at some store, grocery or tavern, when there is no end 
of things he might be doing which wonld add so much 
to the convenience, as well as ))eaiity, of his home, 
and greatly lighten the labors of his wife and family. 
Such men seem to think that when the crops are 
raised and cared for, their year's work is done, and 
that they have nothing whatever to do with making 
the home convenient, comfortable and beautiful. I 
have a great contempt for such men, and always pity 
their wives and children. 

SPRING WORK. 

With the opening of the spring (1880), I went 
vigorously to work putting in my crops. I put 45 
acres in wheat, 30 in oats, and 15 in corn. I hired 
help enough to do this work in good time, and to do 
it well. I want no " slouching " in such work. In 
fact, I don't want it in any kind of work, and it is 
the poorest possible econoniy to try to save time and 
labor in sowing and planting one's crops. I think 
most of the poor crops we hear of in Dakota are due 
to poor farming. Of course, drouth and wet weather 
will injure crops in any case, but they are always 
much less injurious to fields that have been well-tilled 
than to those that have been poorly cultivated. It is 
especially true on a farm that whatever is worth do- 
ing at all, is worth doing well. 

THE summer's crops. 

As soon as my crops were planted I went to work 



TX DAKOTA. 25 

breaking more sod. I also lure I TO acres of breaking 
done, at $3 per acre. I did only about 20 acres my- 
self, making 90 acres for the season. Of this I put 
40 acres in oats, 25 in corn, 10 in flax, and 3 in pota- 
toes; total, 78 acres. This sod crop turned out as fol- 
lows: Oats, 36 bushels per acre, corn lo; flax 8, and 
potatoes 90. At the prices then prevailing they 
would have brought $dS(S. The cost of seed and 
labor was about $6.50 per acre, giving a net profit of 
over $5 per acre. This, for a sod crop, T considered 
very good. 

The crop on my " old land,'' as it is called — that is, 
the 90 acres broken the previous year — turned out 
as follows: Wheat, 21 bushels to the acre; oats, 74 
bushels; corn, 52 bushels. A.t the current prices 
these crops were worth $2,27-2. Add to this the value 
of my 78 acres of sod crops, as above stated, $986, 
and we have $3,258 as the value of the crops on the 
168 acres. * 

EXPENSES AND BALANCE. 

My expenses this summer for hired help and board 
for same, and for seed, were $794, besides the $210 
which I paid for breaking 70 acres, making a total of 
$1,004 for seed and hired help. 

I had bought a self-binding harvester, for which I 
paid $280; one additional horse, $125; two good cows, 
$75; one plow, $40; one seeder, $60; and one mower, 
$60, and other incidental expenses were $44, making 
a total of $684. 



26 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

I regret that I kept no account of what are usually 
called living expenses; but they were not large, al- 
though we lived as well as we ever did in Illinois. 
After selling all my crops, and paying the above 
and all other bills that I owed, I found myself with 
$1,295 cash on hand, and entirely out of debt. 

A MISTAKE. 

I now decided to " commute '' my 160 acres home- 
stead, pay for it at |1.25 an acre, and get my patent 
from the government. I don't know now why I did 
this. There was no need for it at all, for I had not 
the slightest notion of selling out; in fact, would 
not have sold for twice what anybody would have 
given me for my land, and as long as I remained 
there my homestead claim was just as good as a deed 
from the government. 

But I had never owned a foot of land in my life, 
and I wanted to have a quarter section that was 
mine — really, wholly mine, without any proviso or 
contingency in favor of Uncle Sam or anybody else. 
It was a whim, I guess, and the gratification of it cost 
me $200 that might as well have been saved; and yet I 
never saw a piece of paper in my life that looked as 
l)eautiful to me as did that patent from the United 
States of America to Thomas Taylor, his heirs and 
assi<ms forever, for the southeast quarter of Section 

, Township , Range , in the county of 

, and Territory of Dakota. So I think, after all, 

that I got about as much pleasure out of that $2^0 



IN DAKOTA. 27 

as 1 ever did out of any investment in my life. 
After paying for this '"whim" I had a little over 
$1,000, and stock and farming implements as hereto- 
fore mentioned. 

PROGRESS. 

Thus far I certainly had no reason to be dissatisfied 
with the result of my change of location. The 
long-talked-of railroad had been located, and there 
was to be a station and a town within three miles of 
my house; settlers had come in rapidly, and now we 
had half a dozen neighbors within a mile of us, and 
a school house and church were soon to be built. 

During the fall and winter I built a small house on 
my tree claim, with a summer kitchen attached, and 
a cheap barn at a convenient distance from the house. 
My purpose in doing this was that I might have 
good help at hand at all times, and besides this, it 
paid well. It is difficult, as every one knows, in a 
new country for a woman to get help in the house- 
work. Thus far my wife had been rather fortunate 
in this respect, for a couple of enterprising young 
women had taken claims not far from ours, and they 
were always glad to lend a helping hand, for a fair 
compensation, whenever she needed assistance. 

woman's work. 

No one woman ought to be allowed to do all the 
work for a family of even moderate size. Think of 
the cooking, the baking, the washing and ironing, 



28 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

and the thousand and one other things that must be 
done, and then think of one woman, and she often in 
poor health, being expected, and often compelled, to 
do it all ! It is outrageous, and I have no patience 
with the man who will permit it. We men sit on 
our sulky plows, cut our wheat with self-binding 
reapers, and avail ourselves of all other labor-saving- 
machinery to lighten our work. But no machines 
have ever been invented to do the cooking, the wash- 
ing, the ironing, and the thousand other things be- 
longing to ''woman's work," and I regret that so 
many men are too thoughtless, or careless, or heart- 
less, or stingy, to procure the necessary help for their 
wives. Far better have fewer acres under cultivation, 
and a little less money laid by at the end of the year, 
than have your wives work their lives out, as many 
are doing. In this country, where a hundred and 
sixty acre homestead of as good land as the sun ever 
shone on can be had for the taking, and another 
hundred and sixty for $200, there is no need of any 
man's permitting his wife to ruin her health and 
shorten her life for want of help to do her Avork. 

That tenant house has been the means of securing 
efficient help for my wife, as well as for myself, and 
has, besides, helped two families to get a good start, 
from which they are sure to work into a competence. 
I consider it one of my very best investments. 

EXTENDED PLANS. 

In the spring of 1881 I had made my plans for 



i\ J>AAOTA. 29 

more work than J luifl yet done since I came to the 
Territory. I had 180 acres of "old ground" all 
backset and in good condition for the spring crops. 
Encouraged by my success the last year, I concluded 
that by putting ninety acres of this in wheat and 
ninety in oats, and by raising crops on the sixty or 
seventy acres of breaking, which I expected to do 
during the season, 1 could safely count on crops that 
would realize from $3,500 to $4,000 gross, and leave 
me a net profit of about $2,500. There was nothing 
extiavagant in this calculation. 

A TEMPTATION. 

One day a carpenter and builder from the village 
that was springing up on the new railroad line, three 
miles distant, came to see me. After talking over 
several other matters he suggested that 1 ought to 
have a better house, and that he was then in a situa- 
tion to build me one on very favorable terms, as he 
had more men over at the village than he had work 
for, and rather than keep them idle he would put 
them at work on a house for me at just about what 
he was paying them. There was also a fine lot of 
lumber at the village which could be had very cheap, 
as the parties who had intended to use it in bui;ding 
there had made other plans. 

The idea of a new and handsome house struck me 
in a weak point. To tell the truth I had for some 
time been a ir'iWv ashamed of the little one story, 
12 X 20 fnnue in which we were living, and was 



3|0 TOM'S EXPKIilENCE 

rather impatiently looking forward to the time when 
I should be able to build what should be generally 
known as the *' handsomest and handiest farm house 
in the county." Mr. Cook, the builder, had brought 
with him the plans of a house he had built for a 
farmer in Iowa the year before, and which was a 
model in its way, 

PRIDE vs. PRUDENCE. 

My better judgement told me that I ought not to 
assume the financial burden of the new house at that 
time, but pride, and a desire to give my wife the com- 
forts and conveniences of such a home, argued very 
strongly in favor of making a contract with Mr. 
Cook at once. 

I was soon absorbed in the plans he spread before 
me, and the more I examined them the more my bet- 
ter judgment weakened until at last it yielded en- 
tirely, and I commenced negotiating with him as to 
terms. After building that little tenant house I had 
not money enough left to carry me through the sum- 
mer until I could realize on my crops, but that gave 
me no uneasiness, as my credit was good, and if I 
should need a few hundred dollars I could easily get 
it at the Bank in our county seat. But this new 
hc^jse would cost at least $1,200, and if built must be 
pfiid for as the work was done. Mr. Cook was ready 
fgr that emergency : a capitalist in the new village 
would lend me the money at a moderate rate of in- 
terest, taking a mortgage on my 160 acres of land. 



IN DAKOTA. 31 

At the sound of that word '* mortgage " the picture 
of the fine new house vanished like the fabric of a 
vision. Should that (to me) beautiful patent for this 
land be superseded or covered over by a mortgage ? 
Never. Bat then that handsome house. I could not 
give it up. Mr. Cook proposed that we go and 
talk the matter over with Mrs. Taylor, and we 
did so. At first she declared that she would, un- 
der no circumstances, consent to a mortgage on that 
farm ; she would live in that little house ten years 
first. But Mr. Cook understood his business well. 
Again the plans of that handsome Iowa house were 
spread out, and its beauties and conveniences and 
comforts dilated on. My summer's crops would pay 
for the house, and all my expenses, and leave me at 
least a thousand dollars over. Mr. Cook had evident- 
ly studied up on his subject in advance. I could see 
that my wife was weakening, and I was sorry for it, 
because I had given up an hour ago. 

PRIDE CON^QUERS. 

There was one thing that weighed more in favor of 
the new house than Mr. Cook's attractive plans and 
adroit arguments. That was^ that the coming fall 
we were expecting a visit from some of our Illinois 
friends, and what a grand thing it would be to take 
them into that new house, and show them over our 
broad, rich acres — all paid for. And what stories 
they would tell on their return to the old home about 



32 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

" Tora's^' prosperity ! That argument in Mr. Cook's 
favor carried the day — ■although he didn't know it. 

AND KOW THE MOETGAGE. 

Two days hiter he returned in conii)anY with Mr, 
Grimsley, the capitalist. Mr. C had the contracts, 
for the house, and Mr. G. the mortgage and notes 
all properly drawn. The lattter w^ere judgment 
notes, and at first I refused to sign them on that ac- 
count. But Mr. Grimsley assured me that was 
" nothing but a mere form " on which his partners 
always insisted, and so 1 signed them. There w^ere 
three notes of f 425 each — just the cost of the house, 
payable respectively in five, six, and seven months 
aftej- date, with interest at ten per cent. 

I didnt sleep well that night. I dreamed that 
somehow 1 was fast under a very large house, w4iich 
was resting on me with its whole weight, and on to[> 
of it were Mr. Cook and Mr. Grimsley holding it 
down, and grinning and laughing at my agony. Af- 
ter awhile I awoke in a cold sw^eat, and slept but lit- 
tle from that time till morning. 

Next day Mr. Cook came on with his workmen 
and lumber, and the house was commenced. This 
was the first week in March, and as the weather was 
favorable, and Mr. Cook knew how to push things, 
the w^ork made rapid progress, and in what seemed 
to me an incredibly short time the house was under 
roof. 



IN f).\Ki)T.\. 33 

PRIDE GUETU liEFORK A FALL. 

One morning- 1 went up to tlie second story ; the 
floor had not been laid, and I stepped on a loose 
board. 1 remember a crash and then all was blank. 
When I recovered consciousness I was lying on a 
bed, badly bruised and stunned, and with a terrific 
pain in my right leg about half way between my 
knee and ankle. A doctor had been sent for, and on 
his arrival made an examination, and reported that 
the leg was broken. If he had read my death-war- 
rant to me, 1 don't think I would have been more 
severely shocked. There was the season for putting 
in my crops right at hand, and I laid up for three or 
four months at least. 

And there w^as that mortgage ! 

A tiLOOMY OUTLOOK. 

T had 180 acres of land ready to be sown m wheat 
and oats, and nobody to do the work : for only the 
day before the man whom I had engaged to help me 
had sent me word that he had '' taken a claim " some 
50 miles further west, and was going there at once. 
The man who lived in that tenant house had rented 
some land that would require about all his time. It 
seemed that in my time of great need it was abso- 
lutely impossible to get help for love or money. My 
wife rode many miles in search of help, but without 
success. Everybody had all they could do. and more, 
putting in their own cro|)S. My neighbors. Ikiw- 



34 TOM 'S EXPKBIENCE 

ever, kindly rallied to my assistance, and, busy as 
they were, put in forty acres of wheat and about 
thirty of oats for me. But this was less than half 
that I expected to have done, and it being rather late 
when put in, I could hardly expect a full crop. 
And there was that mortgage ! 

tom's folly. 

But I need not go more into detail. Mr. Cook 
pushed the work on the house, finished it, got his 
money, and he and his men went back to the village. 
Tt was a handsome house, no mistake, but as I looked 
at it I named it '' Tom's Folly.'' 

My crops turned out poorly, and the expense of 
harvesting and threshing was unusually heavy. Two 
of those notes were due, and the third would be in 
about a week, but I had heard nothing from Mr. 
Grimsley about them, and concluded that, hearing of 
my accident, he had decided to let them stand until 
it was more convenient for me to pay them. 

A CALL FROM THE SHERIFF. 

T was soon undeceived. About a week after the 
last note was due I had a call from a polite and affa- 
ble stranger, who introduced himself as the sheriff 
of the county, and produced an execution against me 
for over ^1,300, and said his instructions were posi- 
tive to levy on the farm unless the amount was paid 
at once. 

There was that mortgage! 



IX DAKaTA. 35 

T could not pay the amount, and, the sheriff', as in- 
structed, made the levy, and a few days later my fine 
farm was advertised at Sheriff's sale. 

A LAND SHARK. 

By this time I was able to go about without using 
crutches, bnt the broken leg was not strong enough 
to allow of my doing much work. I rode to the 
county seat one day to see if anything could be done 
to save my property. There I learned that Mr. Grims- 
ley had gone east and did not expect to return, and 
that he had sold the mortgage to a regular land shark 
named Richard Bragdon. It seems that Bragdon had 
heard of my accident, and feeling sure that I would 
not be able to pay the notes, had bought them, ex- 
pecting to buy in the property at a heavy sacrifice, 
and probably also get the relinquishment of my tree 
claim. 

" You needn't expect any mercy from Bragdon,^' 
said a friend whom I consulted about the matter, 
'' there is nothing of that kind in his composition. 
He'd sell you out if it turned you and your family 
out on the prairie without a board io shelter you, if 
he could make ten cents by it." 

HIS POUND OF FLESH. 

Nevertheless, I went to see Bragdon. He was a 
thin, chilly-looking man ; bis hand was cold as a 
snake. In fact he seemed snaky, even to his flat, re- 
treating forehead, and very small, dark beady eyes. 



36 TOM'S EXFERIEME 

I almost expected to see his moutli fly open and a 
red. forked tongue dart out. And I was in this man's 
power ! 

I stated my business, asking a renewal of the notes 
for a year, until I could raise another crop. He lis- 
tened attentively and then said he was sorry, but he 
needed the money and must have it. 

"' But, Mr. Bragdon, if you buy in my farm that 
will not give you the money." 

" No, but I can raise a crop on it next year and 
get my money in that way, and probably more. I 
think you have about a hundred and fifty acres of 
'' old land " ready for crops, haven't you ?" 

'' About one hundred and forty on that tract," I 
answered^ " and with the chance to make another 
crop on that, and what I have broken on my tree 
claim, T can pay you and have a handsome balance 
left." 

" If you can do that, I can. Business is business, 
and there is only one way that 1 know of for you to 
save your farm, and that is to pay those notes." 

I saw that I might as well talk to an iceberg. He 
was bound to have his pound of flesh. 

COUNTING UP RESOURCES. 

I left him and went home with a heavy heart. On 
the way I figured over, for prol^ably the thousandth 
time, the resources on which I could draw to raise 
this $1,400. Before tliis judgment was taken against 
me, not being al^le to do the work myself, I had made 



jy DAKOTA. 37 

a contract for my frill plowing, 180 acres, at i^l.50 
an acre, total, $270. I hud sold part of my wheat to 
raise this amount, and had about 200 bushels left, 
which would bring, at 95 cents, $190. Then there 
were my oats in stack, perhaps 1500 bushels. After 
keeping out what I would be compelled to have for 
my stock, and paying expenses of threshing, T might 
realize for these about $400, I miglit possibly be 
able to sell a couple of cows and a horse, and thus 
realize $200 more. But all this would give me less 
than half the amount necessary to save my farm. 

That evening my wife and I held a long consulta- 
tion, and resolved to turn our wheat and oats into 
cash immediately, and sell what stock" we could. If 
we could not save the farm the money would, of 
course, be needed. Notwithstanding the gloomy out- 
look, my wife was brave and hopeful. 

" We will save this farm yet," she said. 

"If faith and courage could do it, you've got 
enough to save a dozen such farms," I answered, 
'' but, unfortunately, these are not legal tenders with 
Richard Bragdon." 

NINE HUNDRED DOLLARS SHORT. 

Next day I went over to the village — which for 
convenience we will hereafter call Kingston, though 
that was not its real name — to see what was the best 
offer I could get for wheat and oats. A new eleva- 
tor had just been completed tbeiv, and I found the 
[►ropricttn-, Mr. White, ready for business. The cars 



38 TOM'S EXFEHIEXVE 

would not be running to Kingston for a week or twa 
yet, but he was making contracts and receiving some 
grain which farmers were in a hurry to deliver. 

The best offer I could get for wheat was 90 cents, 
and for oats 35 cents a bushel, but Mr. White made 
an agreement that if Minneapolis prices advanced be- 
fore the delivery of the grain, he would give me a 
corresponding advance. During that week I deliv- 
ered all the wheat, and the next week threshed and 
delivered the oats. For both I received from Mr. 
White $568, out of which I must pay the expense 
of threshing. We had not been able to sell any 
stock, and it was now less than a week till the sale. 

During that time I exhausted every resource to 
raise the $900 still needed to save the farm, but with- 
out success. I had not succeeded in raising another 
dollar. 

THE BEASON WHY. 

People in eastern states may wonder that, with my 
160 acres of land and other property as security, I 
could not borrow this amount, but they must remem- 
ber that there was at that time very little money to 
lend in this part of the country. Settlers were not 
capitalists, and had need of all their own means and 
geuerally more. A new bank had been started at 
Kingston, but its capital was quite small, and what 
it had was used entirely in short time loans — two 
and three months — and mostly in amounts of from 
$100 to $300. The two banks at the county seat had 



IS DAKOTA. 39 

more capital, but they, too, were discounting nothing 
but short time paper. Bragdon was a director in one 
of these, and of course that settled my business there. 
He did not want me to get the money. He wanted 
my farm. 

There was another thing that I have no doubt 
operated against me : my building that house was 
regarded as a piece of extravagance, and evidence of 
a lack of business prudence and sagacity. I was 
comfortable in the little house, and ought to have 
lived in it at least another year, and so escaped this 
embarrassment. Pride built it, and " pride goeth be- 
fore a fall." Money lenders don't like to make loans 
to men who have given such evidence of the lack of 
common business prudence. And so the day of sale 
arrived. The property was to be offered in front of 
the sheriff's office, " between the hours of ten o'clock 
A. M., and four o'clock p. m.," so read the advertise- 
ment. I resolved to go and see who bought it, hop- 
ing most fervently that somebody might outbid 
Bragdon, though that was hoping against hope. 
Those who had the money and might happen to 
want the place, would not like to bid against him, 
for he would never forget it, and he was a bad man 
to have as an enemy. So I went to the county seat, 
feeling on the way very much as if I was going to 
my own funeral. 

THE sheriff's SALE. 

At eleven o'clock the sale was "called." There Wiis 



40 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

quite a crowd in attendance. The sheriff read the 
legal description of the property, recommended it 
highly from his personal knowledge, spoke especially 
of the fine new house, and then called for bids. 

" Fourteen hundred dollars." sung out Bragdon. 

The sheriff dwelt on this bid for several minutes. 
"Too bad, gentlemen," he said, "to sacrifice this 
property in this way. It is worth four thousand 
dollars if it is worth a cent. Remember it is less 
than three miles from the new railroad town of 
Kingston. Think of getting such a piece of prop- 
erty for only fourteen hundred dollars. Any man 
who buys it at two thousand dollars can double his 
money in six months. Do I hear fifteen hundred 
for it?" 

"Fifteen hundred," came from the other side of 
the crowd. 

Bragdon fairly leaped from the ground, his beady 
eyes gleaming with malice, and I am pretty sure his 
tongue darted out like a serpent's as he hissed, 

^' Sixteen hundred.'' 

" Seventeen/' responded the other. 

" Eighteen," again hissed Bragdon. 

"Nineteen," came from the voice on the other 
side. 

"Two thousand," said Bragdon in a tone that 
seemed to say, " there now, that takes it." But he 
was mistaken. 

" Twenty-one hundred," responded the other. 

This spirited bidding had excited the crowd They 



• IN DAKOTA. 41 

were not used to it. and expected to see Bragdon bid 
in the property witliout competition. 

'* Go ahead, <ji^entlemen," said the sheriff, '" at this 
rate it won't take many minutes to get this splen- 
did property up to something near its real value.'' 

" Twenty-two," said Bragdon. 

"Twenty-five." rung out from the otlier side, at 
which there was some clapping of hands among the 
crowd. 

, Bragdon's face at this time was a study. The 
malice there was in it was unpleasant to see. He 
hesitated a moment and then ventured another bid. 

''Twenty-six hundred," he said. 

The sheriff scarcely had time to repeat the words 
before the response came from the other side in 
clear, emphatic tones: 

^^ Three thousand." 

The crowd cheered again. Bragdon walked away 
muttering, and the sale was over. After dwelling a 
few moments on this bid the sheriff' announced, 

" Sold for three thousand doUars to Mr. , 

what name, please?" 

"Til see you in your office/' answered the success- 
ful bidder. 

THE BUYER. 

Who was he? During the bidding 1 had not been 
able to see him at all, and got only n glimpse of him 
us he went into the sheriff's office. He was a stran- 
ger to me and no one in town seemed to know biin. 
*He had arrived that morning, was seen to enter one 



42 TOM'S EXPEEIENGE 

of tlie banks, nad not been to a hotel, and that was 
all I could learn about him. 

I was glad Bragdon had been defeated, but my 
home was gone all the same, and so after a short 
time I called at the sheriff's office to see the mysteri- 
ous purchaser and learn when he would want posses- 
sion. The sheriff introduced me to Mr. Hawley, of 
Obio. He informed me that he had not bought the 
farm for himself but for a friend. His instructions 
were to bid as high as four thousand dollars for it» 
and to say to me that his principal, Mr. Samuels, 
would see me in a few days and arrange about pos- 
session. 

TALKING IT OVER. 

And so I went home. I told my wife all about 
the sale. We rejoiced that Bragdon had been de- 
feated, and wondered when the buyer would come, 
and what manner of man he would prove to be. He 
must be well-off financially, or his agent, Mr. Haw- 
ley, would not have felt authorized tobid in the way 
he did. He seemed more intent on beating Bragdon 
than on getting the farm at a low price. In a few 
days, doubtless, we would see Mr. Samuels and learn 
all about his plans in regard to the farm. 

I went over to my tenant's in the evening and told 
him the result of the sale, and who the purchaser 
was. Although he had taken the tenant house until 
the coming spring, he voluntarily offered to give it 
up any time I wanted to move into it — as he sup- 
jK)i-od, of course, 1 would do. Anticipating the sale 



IK DAKOTA. 4^ 

of the farm he had secured the refusal of another 
place a few miles distant, until this matter should be 
decided. We thouo^ht best, however, that he should 
wait until Mr. Samuels came before closing the lease 
for the other place. If Mr. S. did not intend to oc- 
cupy the farm himself, possibly I might rent it of 
him for a year or two. It was not likely, though, 
that he would pay that amount of money for a place 
only to rent. He could have done better by buying 
cheaper property. 

And so we both made our calculations to move, aiid 
awaited Mr. Samuels' coming. 

.WHAT WAS LEFT. 

My great expectations had vanished into thin air. 
I had made the best fight I could to retain the farm 
and failed. I had my tree claim left, a small but 
comfortable house on it, a small barn, farming imple- 
ments and some stock, and about $500 in money 
besides the difference — about $1600 — between the 
amount of the judgment on which the farm was 
sold, and the $3000 Mr. Samuels paid for it. So I 
was not destitute by any means. 

But how we do all dislike the idea of coming down, 
even though it does involve no serious discomfort. 
I could live well on that tree claim, be out of debt 
and have money besides. But that quarter section 
that was sold had been my pride. There were the 
trees I had planted that first spring I was here, and 
there were the memories of the labors of my wife and 



^^ TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

self in making a home, and our great joy when we 
knew that it was really and truly ours. 

And now it was gone. 

And there stood "Tom's Folly," a constant re^ 
minder of the ridiculous pride that caused all this 
trouble. If only that new house were out of sight, 
it seemed to me I could go to work on my tree claim 
with cheerfulness and new courage. 

I had certainly paid dearly for the weakness of al- 
lowing myself to be persuaded to go in debt for a 
line house. 

A VISITOR FROM ILLINOIS. 

Returning from my work to dinner one day I 
found we had a visitor — my old friend Sam. Bright, 
from Illinois — one of those, the reader will remem- 
ber, who thought I had better let well enough alone 
and stay there instead of going to Dakota. He had 
inherited a good farm and some money, was of a 
conservative nature, prudent in business and had 
added considerably to his inherited property. He 
had a heart big enough to contain the whole 
world, and yet a head level enough to prevent the 
heart from running away with it. He was one of the 
most popular men in his county, and deserved it, for 
take him all in all, he was one of the best men I ever 
knew. 

He had not caught the Dakota fever exactly, he 
was too conservative for that, but had come out to 
*' see the country" and if a good investment should 



JN DAKOTA, 45 

happen to offer he was ready to take it. We had 
been boys together, and more like brothers than 
brothers often are, and so our meeting was as cor- 
dial on both sides as it well could be. We had din- 
ner, talked over old times and old friends, and then 
came the inevitable question: 

" Well, Tom, how are you getting along? I 
heard of your accident, and understand youVe been 
having some other trouble lately. How is it?" 

I told him the whole story, keeping back nothing, 
and cofessing to the utter, inexcusable folly of the 
whole business. 

" Yes, it was foolish, Tom, and no mistake. I 
thought you were too level-headed to be carried 
away like that. It has been a pretty expensive les- 
son to you, certainly." 

'' Yes," I said, " experience keeps a dear school, but 
fools will learn in no other.''' 

" You're not a fool, Tom, not by a great deal. But 
like the rest of us you have your weak spots, and this 
temptation happened to strike you in one of them, 
and so got the better of you. But you'll be strong 
enough on that point hereafter ; no danger about 
that. As I look at it you had here a comfortable for- 
tune within your grasp, and let it get away from you 
just for the sake of getting that house a year or two 
before you ought to have built it. But such cases 
are not rare, by any means. Every day you may 
read of business failures caused by that very weak- 
ness — people anticipating their incomes by only a 



TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

year or two. And you say Samuels paid $3,000 for 
the place. Where does he live?" 

" I don't know. Mr. Hawley, who bid it in for 
him, lives in Ohio, and I suppose Samuels does, but 

1 don't know." 

" Did Hawley pay the sheriff the full |3,000?" 

*' Yes, of course." 

" It is a pity, a great pity." he said, " that you 
should lose such a place as this just as you were fair- 
ly started on it." 

" Don't, Sam, don't," I exclaimed ; " I know that, 
and have said it to myself a thousand times. But it 
does no good. It don't correct my foolish — worse 
than foolish — blunder. It will never get me this 
farm back. That is gone beyond hope of redemp- 
tion." 

A SCTRPRISB. 

Mr. Bright sat thinking for some minutes, then 
took from his side pocket a large brown envelope, 
and handing it to me, said : 

'' Tom, there are some papers in there I want you 
to look over and tell me if they are genuine." 

I opened the envelope, laid the papers on the ta- 
ble, and commenced the examination. There were 
my mortgage and three notes to Grimsley, afterwards 
assigned to Bragdon ; the sheriff's receipt to Hawley 
for 13,000, and his deed to Samuel Bright of this 
farm ! For some moments I doubted my senses. 
Was this a dream, or had my trou})les driven me 
stark crazy ? 



.7.V DAKOTA. ^^ 

*' What does this mean, Sam ? Don't trifle with 
my feelings, I beg of you. Tell me what it all 
means ?" 

MR, SAMUELS. 

" Now, just keep cool a few minutes, old fellow, 
and ril tell you all about it in as few words as pos- 
sible. In the first place Mr. Samuels is Samuel 
Bright. I heard of your troubles some time ago, and 
as I wanted to see Dakota anyhow, concluded that I 
would get 'round here in time to see if there wasn't 
some way out for you. Mr. Hawley, of Ohio, whom 
I have known for a long time, stopped to make me 
a little visit on his way to Dakota, and we came to- 
gether. I went to see Bragdon and tried to buy his 
claim against you, but it was of no use. 1 might as 
well have talked to a rock. Then I got Hawfey to 
attend the sale and bid in the property for me, and 
you know the rest. I had a double pleasure in doing 
this : first, it enabled me to do a good turn to a 
friend, and next I had an old grudge against that 
contemptible skin-flint, Bragdon. Years ago he vio- 
lated every principle of honor to take a mean ad- 
vantage of my brother William. I said then I'd pay 
him for that sometime, and I would gladly have 
walked from Illinois to Dakota for the revenge I've 
had this week." 

A CALL ON BRAGDON". 

" He never suspected that Hawley was acting for 
me, so yesterday I just dropped in at his oflice and 



|g T0]/\- F.XPKlilKXtE 

told him all about it. 1 iirst refreshed his memory 
about that transaction with mv brother, and then 
showed him these ])a])ers and told him that Hawley 
was simply bidding for me : that 1 had now j)aid 
him back in part, and if there should be any other 
opportunities for paying off the balajice of the score, 
he might expect me around, or somebody to repre- 
sent me. He was just white with rage. He would 
have got your farm here for fourteen hundred dol- 
lars, and he knew it, if I hadn't got in his way.' 

My wife was sitting by while Sam told his little 
story, and before he was half-way through, the tears 
were rolling down her cheeks, and there was a mist, 
or something, in my own eyes, and when I tried to 
speak something came up in my throat, and the 
words couldn't get out. 

MR. BRIGHT MAKES A PROPOSITION. 

'' None of that," said the big-hearted Sam, '' none 
of that. You see I've killed three birds with one 
stone, as it were. I've done you a good turn, done a 
good stroke of business for myself, and had a little 
revenge on Bragdon. 1 happened to have some 
money to invest this fall and came out here for that 
purpose. Now I don't want your farm, and propose 
to deed it back to you^ and then take a mortgage on 
it for that fourteen hundred dollars for two years, 
giving you the privilege of paying it oif in one year 
if you choose. If my terms are satisfactory we will 
go to your county-seat to-morrow, get that sixteen 



IX DAKOTA. 49 

hundred dollars whicli is in the sheriff's hands, and" 
have the papers all made and properly recorded/' 

There was more joy in that house, and more sun- 
shine to the square foot on that farm, that day than 
anywhere else in Dakota. 

LOOKING AT TOM's FOhLY. 

** Now this business is all arranged let us go over 
and see ' Tom's Folly,' " said Mr. Bright. 

And we went. It was certainly a charming house, 
not too large, nor yet cramped in any way. There 
was plenty of light in all the rooms, large closets and 
plenty of them, and we could see nothing that we' 
would desire to change. Our friend Bright enjoyed 
it as much as we did, and insisted that we move into 
it at once. 

" I propose to sleep in my Dakota honse to-night^ 
if I never do again,'' he said. 

With our moderate supply of furniture moving 
was not a big undertaking, and before dark we were 
comfortably established in '' Tom's Folly." 

A BUSINESS TALK. 

After supper, sitting by the bright, cheerful grate 
fire, Sam said he wanted to talk a little more busi- 
ness. 

"All right," I said, ''go ahead." I don't know of 
anybody who has a better right to talk business in 
this house than you have, nor who can do it so well.'' 

^' First, then, you are about to make a new start 
in business, so let us see just how you stand; take 



50 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

an account of stock, as it were. Take a sheet of 
paper and set down carefully what you own, then 
what you owe, and strike a balance and see how jou 
stand. 

I did so, and this was the result: 

RESOUItOES. 

160 acres of land with improvements, house, bam, 

etc., with 145 acres under cultivation, - $4,000 00 
Equity in tree claim with 35 acres under cultivation, 350 00 



One self-binding reaper, say 


- 250 00 


*♦ mower, - - - - 


50 00 


♦* wagon, .... 


65 00 


Two plows, . _ . - 


30 00 


" seeders .... 


50 00 


Four head of horses, 


425 00 


Five head of cattle, - - - - 


150 00 


Seven head of hogs, 


70 00 


Cash on hand, - - 


500 00 


Total, .... 


$5,940 00 


LIABILITIES. 




Due Samuel Brigh', 


- $1,400 00 


All other debts, 


110 00 



Total. $1,510 00 

'^ There it is," I said, handing it to him. " I think 
that is about correct. I have not put in anything for 
household furniture, the smaller farming tools nor 
poultry. I have a fine lot of the latter and count 
them quite valuable in the way of furnishing a por-- 
tion of our living. But I let these things go by way 
of margin so the statement may be entirely- safe." 



/.V TlAfCOTA. gj 

He took the paper, looked it over carefully and 
said, '' I think this is a fair statement except that you 
have put in your farm at least $500 too low. With 
this house and the other improvements, and 145 acres 
under cultivation, it would be cheap at $4,500. But 
as you have it here it leaves a balance in your favor 
of $4,430. I call that a very good showing especially 
for a man who lost six months of valuable time with 
a broken leg, and has just got out of the sheriff's 
hands. 

SOME PLANS FOR THE FUTURE. 

" Now let us make some plans for the future. You 
have 180 acres of land under cultivation, and all 
plowed and ready for next spring's crops. What had 
you thought of raising on it?" 

'' Wheat and oats. I have found them the most 
profitable crops." 

"Better than flax?" 

'' Perhaps noA better, but just as good, and I prefer 
not to have too many different kinds of crops the 
same year. With my limited barn and granary room 
they are a little difficult to take care of." 

" Well, suppose you divide the land equally between 
wheat and oats, what do you think they will average 
per acre ?" 

'' If the season is at all favorable the wheat twenty 
and the oats sixty bushels. Those will be low aver- 
ages if I can give my personal attention to putting 
in the crops in good time and good style.' 

''And what prices can yon count on here." 



52 TOMS EXPERIENCE 

" Wheat not less than ninety cents, oats not less 
than thirty; most likely more for both." 

He took some paper and after figuring a minute 
continued: ''Ninety acres wheat, 20 bushels per 
acre, 1800 bushels; ninety cents a bushel, $1,620. 
Ninety acres oats, 60 bushels per acre, 5400 bushels; 
thirty cents a bushel, $1,620. Exactly the same. 
And the probabilities of an increase of the average 
per acre, and an increase in the price, is about the 
same with each. 

" Yes, I think so. People talk of thirty, forty and 
even forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, and 
ninety and a hundred of oats, and I have no doubt 
such crops are sometimes raised, but they are excep- 
tional. I'm going to try next year for some of those 
exceptional crops to make up for the losses caused 
by that broken leg." 

*'And by 'Tom's Folly,'" said he laughing. 

"Yes, for if it hadn't been for 'Tom's Folly' I 
wouldn't have got that fall and broken my leg." 

POTATOES. 

"Are you going to do any more breaking next 
spring?" he asked. 

" I hadn't thought much about that yet." 
" I think you ought. You have 140 acres yet un- 
broken, and I would advise you to break at least 40 
or 50 of that next spring. And I'd plant it all in 
corn and potatoes. I don't see why potatoes should 
not be one of your most j^rofi table crops here, especi- 



IN DAKOTA. 53 

ally on sod. I understand 90 bushels an acre is not 
an unusual crop and that frequently 100 and more 
are raised. Suppose you break 50 acres next spring 
and plant half in corn and half in potatoes.'* 

"That would be 2250 bushels of potatoes if they 
yielded only 90 bushels an acre. What in the world 
would I do with them all?" 

" Well, you are now only three miles from a rail- 
road station. Ship them to Minneapolis or St. Paul, 
or even to Chicago, to some reliable commission mer- 
chant, to be sold for you. They cost but little for 
seed, next to nothing for planting, as you drop them 
in the furrows when you are breaking, and nothing 
for cultivation. I want you to try twenty-five acres 
as an experiment, and if it don't turn out well you 
may call it ' Sam's Folly.''' 

" All right, rU do it." 

CATTLB. 

"And now, Tom, there's one other thing I want 
to suggest : you havn't stock enough. There are 
hundreds of acres of this rich prairie grass going to 
waste that might as well be growing into beef and 
pork for somebody's profit." 

'* Yes, I know that," I answered, "but I haven't 
had the money to buy stock with." 

" That brings up just the point I was driving at. I 
want to go into partnership with you in the stock busi- 
ness here. Not on a mammoth scale, as they do on 
the ranches farther west and south, but with just as 



54 TOMS EXPERIENCE 

many as you can handle conveniently in connection 
with your other farming. Til furnish the money 
and you manaoje the business; all expenses, including 
u fair rate of interest on capital invested, and com- 
pensation for your services, and for care and keeping 
of the stock, to be charged to the firm, and all pro- 
fits to be divided equally. What do you say?'' 

A W0MA1!?^'S INTDITIONS. 

" The proposition seems a liberal one on your part, 
Sam, but the matter is new to me. 1^1 think it over 
and consult with my wife about it, for a woman's in- 
tuitions in business affairs are often worth more than 
a man's best judgment." 

''That's right, Tom ; stick to that. Your head's 
level there, and no mistake. And now I guess we've 
had business enough for one day, let's try a night's 
rest in ' Tom's Folly.' I'm tired enough to enjoy 
mine, and have no doubt you can. So good night." 

THANKFULISTESS. 

The complete revolution in our circumstances 
which this day had wrought, rendered sleep impos- 
sible for either my wife or myself until the " wee, 
sma' hours " had come and almost gone again. We 
talked over all the trials of the past year, the changed 
prospects for the future, and fell asleep at last with 
hearts full of thankfulness to the good Father who 
€areth for us all. 

THE MORTGAGE RENEWED. 

The next day we all went to the county seat and 



jy DA/vOTA. 5g 

liad the arrangement about the mortgage completed, 
after which Sam suggested a call on Bragdon, but as 
we were through with him, as I hoped forever, T de- 
clined and we returned home. 

'' Sam/' I said to him that evening, "your propo- 
sition about the stock business seems very fair and 
liberal, but I don't think I had better accept it. It 
will involve a good deal of extra work and rjesponsi- 
bility on my part, and I prefer, for the next year at 
least, to give my undivided attention to my crops. 
Perhaps I am over-timid, but remember that I've just 
got out of the sheriff's hands, and let that be my 
apology, if any is needed, for declining an offer that 
most men would be glad to accept." 

*' All right, Tom ; no apology is needed. I am con- 
fident there is money in the business, but perhaps 
you are right in not assuming any more responsibili- 
ties at present. But remember, I shall not let you 
off from that twenty-five acres of potatoes.^' 

AN ART DIVIKE. 

Our friend remained with us a week, and a more 
delightful visit for all parties could not be imagined. 
My wife fitted up for him the pleasantest chamber in 
the new house. The furniture was of the plainest, 
but everything was arranged with that peculiar art, 
known only to a neat and tasteful woman, which with 
the cheapest materials produces the richest effects. 
It is something that most men can appreciate, but 
none can learn. To me it seems an " ai't diviiMv" 



50 TOM'S EXPERIE^^CE 

PREPARATIONS. 

During the winter 1 made an addition to my sta- 
bles, and built another granary, at a cost for both of 
$86. I engaged two of the best men I could find to 
assist me in- putting in my crops, being determined 
to get them in as early as the weather would permit, 
and in the best possible manner, for, be it remem- 
bered, I had set out to raise some extra good crops 
this year. 

PUTTING IN THE CROPS. 

The reader will not be interested in the details of 
my spring work further than that I kept constantly 
in view my purpose to raise exceptionally large crop& 
if possible. The season for sowing was a little later 
than usual, but I had everything in readiness, and 
every day in which work could be done was made 
the most of, so that I managed to get the crops — 
ninety acres each of wheat and oats — all in in good 
time. And with extra harrowing, wherever it was 
needed, and the liberal use of a new pulverizer which 
I had recently purchased, the ground was in the best 
possible condition. I felt the consciousness that T 
had done everything in my power to insure good 
crops, and if the season was at all favorable I would 
have them. 

There is nothing that a Dakota farmer can do that 
pays better than the comparatively small amount of 
extra work necessary to prepare the ground properly 
for the reception of seed, Good breaking must be 



IN DAKOTA. rj< 

done. The sod should be turned over evenly, smooth- 
ly and completely, and not with a patch every rod or 
two standing on edge so that the grass on it has al- 
most as good a chance to grow iis it ever had. It is 
just as easy to do the work well as in this slip-shod 
manner. 

Then the back-setting should be thoroughly done, 
and in doing it the plow should be run deep, so as to 
throw up a liberal quantity of the loose, rich soil. 

The right kind of work in preparing the ground 
and putting in the crops, will almost insure from 
twenty-five to a hundred per cent, larger crops. I 
have seen many fields of wheat that did not average 
over fifteen bushels per acre, when twenty-five, or 
even thirty bushels might have been had by proper 
cultivation. And the same is true of all other crops. 

I commenced breaking as soon as my wheat and 
oats were sown. Hired twelve acres done at $3.50 
per acre, and did the balance of the fifty acres my- 
self, and planted twenty-five acres in corn, and the 
same in potatoes. 

HELPIN^G SOD CROPS. 

It is generally understood that sod corn and pota- 
toes need no cultivation whatever, and they don't 
heed very much. But if the farmer will take a sharp 
hoe, late in June or early in July, and go over his 
fields, cutting down all weeds and grass that may 
have made their appearance, and loosening the earth 
ii little around the hills of corn, he will find that the 



58 TOM\S EXPERIENCE 

work will pay. Of course no other cultivation ia 
possible on the sod. The destruction of the weeds^ 
and so preventing their going to seed, will save work 
the next year, especially if the ground should be 
planted in corn; and the killing of the grass promoter 
the rotting of the sod. 

TtlE GROWING CROPS. 

You can well suppose that I watched the progress 
of my growing crops this year with more than ordi- 
nary interest. There was so much at stake. I wanted 
to get that mortgage removed from my farm^ for al- 
though it was in the hands of my friend Bright, I 
knew that I could breathe freer and feel vastly more 
independent if it were cleared off. 

The season was a fairly favorable one — neither ex- 
tra good nor very poor. Twice I thought the crops 
were going to be seriously injured by drouth, but 
rains came in time to prevent much damage. But 
more rain would have been better. 

HARVESTING AND THRESHING. 

Harvest came, and I went to work with my 
self-binder and the necessary help, and got both oats 
and wheat in shock in good condition^ and had time 
to ruii my reaper a few days for my neighbors whose 
crops were not quite so early as mine. 

I decided to thresh and sell my crops without un- 
necessary delay. Wheat was then worth ninety-five 
cents per bushel at the elevator in Kingston, and oats 



IN DAKOTA, 5Q 

thirty-five cents. Some thought wheat would go up 
to a dollar or more, but the chances seemed about as 
good that it would drop to ninety cents. It did go 
to ninet3^-eight cents a week or two after I had sold 
mine, but I had got a good paying price and did not 
grieve over the loss of the three cents more a bushel 
that I might have received by waitirjg a little longer. 

1 need not dwell on the details of threshing and 
marketing the crops. Every farmer reader under- 
stands that it is hard work — the threshing especially. 
We had about the regular number of annoying de- 
lays caused by breakages and derangements of 
machinery. I don't suppose that any machine has 
ever been invented yet, or ever will be, that won't 
break and get out of order. Even the old-fashioned 
flail and grain-cradle would. The old-style fanning 
mill that was run by hand came about the nearest 
to being an exception to this rule. When I was a 
boy and had to, turn it from morning till night I 
used often to wish that it would break down and 
give me a rest; but it never did. 

My wheat turned out an average of twenty-eight 
bushels per acre, a total yield of 2,520 bushels; my 
oats a fraction over seventy-one bushels per acre, a 
total of 6,390 bushels. 

What about the twenty-five acres each of sod 
corn and potatoes? 

I cut up my corn to have the fodder for my stock 
during the winter. I would not do that again, for 
while abundance of hay can be made here at a coat 



g0 TOM'S EXPBBIBNCS 

of not over $1.25 per ton, it is cheaper than the com 
fodder. But we used to cut up most of our corn in 
Illinois, and 1 thought it would pay here, too, but it 
does not now. After a while, when these prairie 
meadows are all taken up, of course it will. When 
the corn was husked and measured, I found the yield 
was forty-two bushels per acre, a total of 1,050 
bushels. 

there's MOITEY IN" IT, 

The twenty-five acres of potatoes turned out well, 
averaging ninety-four bushels per acre, a total of 
2,350 bushels. I had been looking out in advance 
for the sale of these. Had corresponded with com- 
mission men in Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago, 
and after examining their references and terms de- 
cided to ship two car-loads to Minneapolis and two 
to Chicago. After paying freights and commissions 
for selling, I found I had realized two cents per 
bushel more on those sent to Minneapolis. Lower 
freights accounted for a part of this difference. My 
returns were twenty-nine cents a bushel for those 
shipped to Chicago, and thirty-one cents for those 
shipped to Minneapolis. 

BALANCING THE BOOKS. 

My crops being now all gathered and sold, let us 
see how the account stood for the season's work. As 
a matter of fact I did not sell the entire crops, as I 
reserved of each what was needed for family use, 
and keeping of stock; but to make the account more 



IN DAKOTA. 61 

clear and intelligible I credit the farm with the en- 
tire products, and then charge in the expense ac- 
count the family living expenses and keeping of 
stock for the year. On this plan my account stood 
as follows: 

Dr. 

Plowing 180 acres at $1.50 per aero S 270 00 

New granary and addition to stables 86 00 

One new pulverizer 50 00 

Seed wheat for ninety acres 122 00 

Seed oats, corn and potatoes 61 00 

Two men one month putting in wheat and oats. . 40 00 

Board for men 24 00 

Twelve acres breaking, at S3. 50 per acre 42 00 

Extra help in harvesting wheat and oats, 4 men 

15 days, at $2.50 each per day 150 00 

Board of men 24 00 

Threshing, including board of extra help 352 00 

Help in hauling to market 77 00 

Blacksmithing and other repairs 93 00 

Cutting up com 10 00 

HuskiDg Corn 15 00 

Extra help gathering potatoes 36 00 

Board of extra help 12 00 

Extra hep hauling to market 44 00 

Expenses of family, including clothing and hired 

help for the house 495 00 

Grain for stock 225 00 

Incidentals 50 00 

Total $2,278 00 



02 tom's experience 

Or. 

2520 bushels of wheat @ 95 cts $2,394 00 

6390 bushels of oats @ 33 cts 2,108 00 

2350 bushels of potatoes @ 29 and 31 cts 704 00 

1050 bushels of corn @, 35 cents 367 00 

Total $5,573 00 

Deduct expenses as above 2,278 00 

Ijeaves profits for the year $3,295 00 

To this amount add the $500 cash which I had on 
hand at the beginning of the year, and we have |3,- 
795 as the amount which I found myself ahead at 
tiie end of the year 1882. 

ABOUT CERTAIN FAMILY EXPENSES. 

I had worked hard and so had my wife, and we 
had both economized as closely as we could, and yet 
we had lived well. In the item of family expenses 
there was nearly a hundred dollars for hired help in 
the house, and there was nothing in all the $2,278 
that I paid so cheerfully, or that brought us more 
genuine comfort. And I want to commend this mat- 
ter again to the special attention of my brother 
farmers. When you go out to get men to do your 
harvesting or threshing, or any other extra work, 
just remember that this involves a great deal of ex- 
tra work in the house also, and get the necessary help 
for your wife, even if you have to pay what seems 
an exorbitant price for it. Nothing will pay better 



IN DAKOTA. g8 

in the long run. And there are times when there is 
extra work in the house when there may be none on 
the farm. Provide for this also. And don^t wait 
for your wife to ask for it. A sensitive woman — as 
most women are, and your wife certainly is — will 
generally do the work herself rather than ask for 
the help she ought to have, even though it robs her 
of many hours in the night, when she ought to be 
asleep. It will rob her also of the bloom on her 
cheek, and the buoyancy and elasticity of spirit 
which your money can't replace. 

RETROSPECTION. 

Looking back over the year's work I certainly had 
no reason to be dissatisfied with the result. It stood 
out in pleasant contrast with the year before, and 
profiting by the mistakes of that year, I had greater 
courage for the work, and stronger faith in the out- 
come^ of the future. My bump of caution had 
been considerably developed last year, and that of 
hope by the success of the present. No one can fore- 
cast the future ; he who trusts in Grod and does his 
level best, has done all that the best man can do, and 
is pretty sure to come out all right sooner or later. 
And if he has a well-improved Dakota farm back of 
him, he has a very substantial reason for increased 
confidence in the future. 

CANCKLLING THE MORTGAGE. 

When I had got far enough along with my crops 
to feel certain of the result, I wrote my friend 



54 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

Bright, telling him the situation, and inviting him 
to make ns another visit and bring vritli him that 
mortgage and the note, as I wanted to pay it. He 
came, and b}' this time he had a slight touch of the 
"' Dakota fever " — not serious enough to take him 
away from his delightful Illinois home — and I did 
not wonder at that, for he was as pleasantly situated 
there as he could hope to be anywhere ; but he was 
ready to buy land here and cultivate it " by proxy," 
as it were, provided he could find the right kind of 
man to rent it to. 

The second day of his stay with us we went to 
the county-seat, and I paid him the amount of that 
note, with interest for thirteen months at ten per 
cent.; principal, 11,400. interest $151.07, total $1,- 
55 1 .67, and he cancelled the mortgage on record at 
the Register's office, and gave me the original mort- 
gage and note. 

'' Keep them, Tom," he said, as he handed them to 
me. " as a reminder of a severe trial and narrow es- 
cape." 

" My wife shall take charge of them," I answered, 
*' and if we are ever tempted by pride or anything 
else to go in debt for a thing we don't really need, 
we'll get these out and take a good look at them be- 
fore we decide." 

And my wife has those documents in her charge 
to-day, but we havn't as yet needed their help to say 
:**^ No " when occa.sion required. 



IN DAKOTA. 69 

A BUSINESS TALK WITH MR. BRIGHT. 

That night as we were sitting around the cheerful 
Are in our pleasant home — now ours in fact — Mr. 
Bright again brought up the matter of his own purr 
chases of land in Dakota, not to speculate in its rise 
in value only, but for the purpose of bringing it in^ 
to cultivation, and making as much out of the crops 
as he could, and having the benefit at the same time 
of the increase in value. 

" What do you think of the plan, Tom?" he ask- 
ed. "You've been here long enough to know 
whether it would be likely to prove a good invest- 
ment." 

" It depends a good deal," I answered, '' on the 
kind of men you get to cultivate it. But with any- 
thing like decent farming it would prove a very pro- 
fitable investment. And, Sam, I don't know of any 
way in which you can make your surplus money do a 
greater amount of good." 

HELPING PEOPLE TO HELP THEMSELVES. 

" You know there are a great many industriou3 
and worthy young people in Illinois who would jump 
at the chance of coming out here and going on a 
quarter section and cultivating it '' for all there is in 
it," if they only had the means. And not only Il- 
linois, but the other States are full of them. If you 
will think a moment, I have no doubt you can mak« 
a list of a dozen or more in your own circle of ac- 
quaintances, ' poor but honest,' and industrious as thir 



fM TOM\'i EXPERIENCE 

day is loiig, who would delight in such an opportun- 
ity. They don't come because they haven't money 
enough to get here and get started, and they are 
afraid to venture with the limited means they have. 
If they felt that you, or some other man with mon- 
ey was back of them, they wouldn't hesitate a mo- 
ment. And they would make a good showing when 
they got here. Why, I tell you, Sam, solely as a 
means of doing good it would be better to start a lot 
of those young couples in that way on these prairies 
than to found an orphan asylum ; for if their chil- 
dren should become orphans they would be independ- 
ent of asylums." 

"But Im talking business now, Tom, not benevo- 
lence. Of course I want to do all the good I can. 
and Fd like to do it in this way, provided it is safe 
and reasonably profitable. What can land be bought 
for around here now ?" 

" There isn't very much for sale near here. But I 
know of several unimproved quarter-sections that 
can be bought for from eight to twelve dollars an 
acre." 

" If they are good why do their owners want to 
sell them?" 

" For different reasons. A man may have proved 
up on his pre-emption and paid for it, and have no 
money left. Now if he could sell that for a thou- 
sand or twelve hundred dollars, and go further west 
and take a homestead or a tree claim^ or both, you 
see he would have money enough to get a good start. 



IN DAKOTA. 157 

Then there are others who will sell anything they Ve 
got if they can get more than it cost them, and 
think they've made a fine speculation. One of these, 
for example, paid for his pre-emption with $200. 
Now if he can sell out for $1,200, he thinks he has 
made a thousand dollar speculation. And, o£ course, 
he has in one sense^ but if he has money enough to 
go ahead where he is, in most cases he would do bet- 
ter to stay, especially as he is near a good market 
here." 

WILL IT PAY ? 

'*But the important question comes up again" 
said he, " how can this be made to pay ? If I should 
buy two or three quarter-sections, and should decide 
to put tenants on them to bring them into cultiva- 
tion, what arrangement should be made that would 
be fair to me and to the tenant, and profitable to us 
both?" 

ILLUSTRATIlfG A CASE. 

"Well, then," I answered, "to illustrate let us 
suppose a case. Suppose you know an industrious 
young couple in Illinois who would like to go west, 
but don't know where to go, and have no means to 
pay the expenses of hunting up a location and get- 
ting a start. You buy a quarter section here, in a 
good location and near a good market. It costs you, 
say ten dollars an acre, $1,600. You pay the ex- 
penses of your tenants, and ' set them up in busi- 
niess;' that is, fnrnish the means t/> build them a 



^8 rJM'S EXPERIENCE- 

«BQall liGuse and stable, three horses for a breaking 
team; a cow, feed for the stock, a good plow, and 
something for their own support until the breaking 
season is over. 

*'Your total investment will be about $2^500. 
That will be plenty, and less might do — a good deal 
less does a great many people, and they manage to 
pull through. But we will deal liberally with this 
couple of yours. Suppose they arrive here in the 
spring, in good time to build their house and stable, 
and be ready for the breaking season, which is not 
less than fifty days long. In that time he ought to 
bfeak at least eighty acres for himself, plant a lot of 
it in potatoes, flax, oats and corn, and do enough 
breaking for others to earn $60, or more, to pay liv- 
ing expenses. 

" For your investment of $2,500 you ought to have, 
say ten per cent, interest the first year, and you 
should let the tenant pay that in breaking sod at the 
regular rate, and give him the benefit of such sod 
crops as he could raise. When you consider the in- 
creased value of your land, you will find that would 
be a very good investment. Of all crops except those 
raised on sod you would have one-third. The tenant 
ought to plant at least ten acres of potatoes, and 
just as much of the balance of his breaking as pos- 
sible in flax and oats, with enough corn to supply his 
stock. If he could get the money to pay for it, he 
would better hire enough help to put every acre of 
his breaking in crops. He should also put up enough 



IN DAKOTA. 69 

hay for his stock during the winter. For some of 
the assistance he would need in doing this, he could 
exchange work with his neighbors, and during har- 
vest, with the help of his team, he ought to earn 
$75. His sod crops, aside from the potatoes, would 
furnish abundant feed for his stock, and surplus 
enough to pay for all the supplies needed for the 
family, and his ten acres of potatoes would yield 900 
bushels, worth at 30 cents a bushel, ^270. His earn- 
ings for the season then would be; 

From breaking ^ 60 00 

From work of self and team in harvest 75 00- 

From 900 bushels of potatoes 270 00 

Total ^*05 00 

'' In this calculation you will notice that I leave 
out all the sod crops except the potatoes, as I allow 
them to go entu^ely to the family support and the 
keeping of the stock. And they will do that well. 
In the fall he does his backsetting and gets his land 
in good condition for next springs crops, and during 
the winter he can (and will if he is a sensible fellow) 
fix up a gi-eat many things to add to the comfort and 
convenience of his home. In the spring he will have 
eighty acres in first-rate condition for crops, which 
he can put in wheat and oats— say sixty of wheat 
and twenty of oats. Then he will do forty or fifty 
acres more breaking, and on the sod raise another 
crop of potatoes, flax, oats and corn. If his wheat 
produced twenty bushels per acre and his oats sixty» 



70 TOM'S KXPERIENt'E 

and he sold the wheat at ninety-five cents and tha 
Odts at thirty, these crops would realize $1^500, 
your third ($500) being twenty per cent, on your in- 
vestment, besides the increase in the value of your 
land." 

He listened attentively to my statement, and then 
said : 

" I do not see any flaw in your calculations, but it 
seems to me you've laid out a good deal of work for 
that tenant." 

" On the contrary, I've given him comparatively 
an easy time of it. If he stays in Illinois and works 
as a tenant there, he will have to do more work every 
year than I have laid out for him here." 

*' But a good tenant," he said, "woald want to 
know, before coming here, what the advantage to 
him would be. He would say he might as well be a 
tenant in Illinois as in Dakota." 

THE TEN^ ant's SIDE. 

" The difference to him would be in the lower 
price of land here, and his much better chance of 
getting a farm of his own. My calculation gives 
him $405 cash at the end of his first season's work. 
At the end of the second season, from the proceeds 
of his wheat and oats and sod crops, after paying ex- 
penses of harvesting and threshing, he would prob- 
ably have a thousand dollars, but say only eight hun- 
dred, and he would still be twelve hundred dollars 
ahead. Now do you know of any tenants and their 



IN DAKOTA. "H 

families in your part of Illinois who can make such 
a showing as that?" 

'* No, I don t think I do," he answered. 

'' And the second year," I continued, ^'you would 
have 130 acres under cultivation. With a hundred 
of this in wheat and thirt}^ in oats, you could reason- 
ably expect 2,000 bushels of wheat, and 1,800 of 
oats, which would bring, say $2,500. Your third of 
that would be thirty-three per cent, on your $2,500 
investment, and your tenant will have added eight 
hundred or a thousand dollars to his surplus." 

A TENANT NO LONGER. 

'* And then," he said, " he wouldn't be anybody's 
tenant any longer." 

" No," I said, '' and he oughtn't to be. And there's 
where the greatest benefit to the tenant comes in. 
He becomes a land owner himself, and soon is inde- 
pendent. There is a great deal of capital in the east 
that might be profitably invested in this way^ and 
there are thousands of poor families who might be 
thus helped to good homes on these rich lands. It is 
H practical combination of labor and capital, under 
which there would be no strikes, and by which any 
sober, industrious employee can in two or three years 
become an employer himself, and the owner of a good 
farm." 

THEY WANT BACKING. 

" But why," inquired Mr. Bright, " isn't it better 
for a poor man to take a pre-emption or homestead 



72 TOM'S EXPKRIESVK 

at once, and thus cultivate his own land instead of 
mine, or some other man's ?^' 

'* If he has something to start on, it is. But it 
takes something for moving expenses, land office fees, 
a house, a team, a plow, and for the family's living 
until the sod crops can be grown, and a great many 
even who have enough ahead for all these things are 
afraid to make the venture. They think it better to 
endure the ills they have than fly to others that they 
know not of. If they had some one back of them with 
capital for a couple of years, they'd get able to go 
alone, and soon have homes of their own. Thou- 
sands of determined men do go on government land 
with barely enough money to get to their claims, 
and somehow they manage to pull through, and 
you'll see them in a few years comfortably fixed and 
independent. But of course they have a hard time 
of it for awhile. But even their privations are as 
nothing when compared with those of the old pio- 
neers who settled the heavily timbered States, such as 
Indiana, Ohio and Michigan." 

" Well, I a!n pleased with yoar plan, Tom," he 
said, " and think I'll try it on a quarter-section or 
two, anyway. But it's late, and we all ought to be 
in bed. So good night." 

MR. BRIGHT INVESTS. 

The next mor&ing Mr. Bright decided to purchase 
two quarter-sections, it they could be had for a fair 
price, and send out ten an is for them on his return 



IN DAKOTA. 73 

home. After some inquiry we found two that suited 
him, for which he paid ^1,500 apiece. He arranged 
for the building of suitable houses and stables upon 
them, which were to be ready for the tenants early 
in the spring. And then he went back to his Illin- 
ois home. 

A HINT TO CAPITALISTS. 

The plan which I outlined to him as above given, 
is well worth the consideration of capitalists and 
men without means, in the eastern and middle States. 
To the first it is a perfectly safe and very profitable 
inyestment, and to the latter it offers a fine opportun- 
ity for such a start in the west as will soon enable 
him to own a farm of his own. There is not a man 
with surplus money to invest anywhere who does not 
know of one or more industrious, trustworthy fam- 
ilies whom he could start in this way, and who will 
never get a start in any other. 

FALL WORK. 

My fall ploughing was pushed vigorously, and by 
the help of several hired teams was all done before 
winter set in. 

I reiterate here the great importance of putting 
the ground intended for spring crops in the best pos- 
sible condition the preceeeding fall. No work the 
farmer can do pays better than this, unless it be good 
breaking. I now had 230 acres under cultivation, 
and when the plow, and harrow, and pulverizer were 
through with it, you would have agreed with me 



74 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

that it looked like a garden. I confess I was proud 
of it. 

BACK TO THE OLD HOME. 

We had decided to make a visit to the old Illinois 
home this winter, and so the week before the holi- 
days we packed the necessary trunks and started. 
We had come out in the fall of 1879, and neither of 
us had been back in the three years that had elapsed. 
This, you will remember, was in December, 1882. It 
seemed really only a few months since, on that bright 
October afternoon, we drove up to the plain little 
house I had built during the summer, and for the 
first time went together into our own home. Then 
the nearest railroad was twenty-three miles distant, 
and on all this broad stretch of prairie there were 
only three houses in sight, and two of these were 
more than three miles away. Now there are neigh- 
bors all around us, and as good ones, too, as you will 
find anywhere, a good school house near by, a pros- 
perous village with two neat churches within less 
than three miles, and every few hours during the day 
we can see from our door the railroad trains rushing 
into the village and out again. In the progress that 
had been made it seemed a generation since we came 
instead of only three short years. But so our great 
west grows. 

The children were particularly delighted with the 
j>rospect of so long a journey, and enjoyed it to the 
utmost. They could hardly realize it when we arrived 
at our journey's end, for they had thought that it 



IN DAKOTA. Y5 

was SO very far " to Illinois " that we ought to be at 
least a week in getting there. 



ILLINOIS HOSPITALITY. 



There is no discount on Illinois hospitality, and 
our reception by the old friends was cordiality itself. 
During the first twenty-four hours I really think we 
received enough invitations to '' come and make us a 
good, long visit," to have taken the entire winter and 
spring if we had accepted them all. And there was 
nothing of the half-way, simply formal tone about 
these invitations, either. They were given in a way 
that made you feel that they were meant to their full- 
est extent. Reader, if you don't know what this Il- 
linois hospitality is, you have missed a great deal. I 
am sorry to say that there are a good many places in 
this country where it does not prevail at all. 

MR. ] [Right's quarter sections. 

Among the first men I met after my arrival was 
our good friend Bright, and of course we were all 
delighted to see him again. 

" Welcome back to the old home," he said, in his 
cheery, cordial way ; " we are all glad to have you 
with us again, and you can prepare for business 
right ofi"." 

" Why, what's up?" I enquired. " I came here on 
a visit and not on business." 

" Well, only this," he answered, " that about every 
other man within five miles of here has been at 



^76 TOM'S BXPERIIENVE 

work, ever since he heard you were coming, fixing 
up a catechism for you about Dakota. Before you 
get through with half of them you'll wish yourself 
back on your Dakota farm." 

"No, I won't. Just let them come on, and if 
there's anything that I know about Dakota that will 
be of any advantage to my old friends around here, 
I'll be only too glad to tell them." 

*' Better ' hire a hall,' as the boys say, and tell 
them all at one time, and be done with it." 

" No, I couldn't do that — couldn't talk to them 
in that way — and if I could it wouldn't satisfy them. 
With many of them it is the most important business 
matter that could come before them — involving as 
it does the question of a home, and of their future 
success in life. What men want in such a matter is 
to sit down quietly and talk it all over with some 
one in whom they have confidence ; who can give 
them the information they want, and then ask him 
all the questions they can think of. You see, Sam, 
I know how it is myself. A few years ago I would 
have given a good deal for just such an opportunity, 
and now if I can help people who are situated as I 
was then, it will give me real pleasure, and if my ex- 
perience during the last four years in Dakota wall be 
of any value to them, they are welcome to it, and T 
promise not to get tired dealing it out to them." 

" 'Tom's Folly,' and all?" he asked, laughingly. 

'' Yes, certainly, ' Tom's Folly ' and all. I shall 
conceal nothing, although it is a little humiliating 



IN DAKOTA. r^rj 

to have to confess to such a folly as that. But what, 
about the tenants you want for those two quarter- 
sections out there. Have you got them yet?" 

^* No, I havn't selected them yet. I guess I have 
had twenty applicants, though, since it became 
known that I wanted them, and all good people, too. 
I tell you, Tom, if I had a county of land out there, 
I believe I could put a good family on every quarter- 
section of it between this and next May on the terms 
you &Qd I talked over last fall. Really, most of them 
seem to piefer it to homesteading or pre-empting. 
Only yesterday, in an interview with one of them he 
said : ' my means are very hmited, and I am afraid 
to venture out there with my little family on what I 
have. But if I could make such an arrangement as 
you propose, and in that way get what little backings 
I may happen to need for a while, I know I could 
in a few years own my own farm. And that's some- 
thing I never can do here.' And the man fairly 
begged for one of those quarters I bought in Dako-» 
ta last fall." 

'' Didn't you suggest to him," I asked, "that it 
might be better for him to go farther out and take 
a homestead, or a tree-claim, or a pre-emption?" 

'• Yes, and really urged it on him. 'But he has 
very little money, and is afraid to venture with what 
he has. ' If I were alone,' he said, ' I would not hes- 
itate a moment, even if I had only enough money to 
take me there and pay the Land Office fees. I'd ^o 
and get my claim and live in a dug-out until I could 



78 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

get something ahead. But I can't think of taking 
my little family to such a life as that.' I tell you, 
Tom, that man has the right kind of metal in him.'' 
'' Yes, and we have lots of that kind in Dakota. 
They are heroes in their way." 

AKOTHER HINT TO CAPITALISTS. 

Capitalists are again respectfully referred to this 
suggestion. There is money in it for them — a much 
larger per cent per annum than any bonds or mort- 
gages will pay them, and just as safe. And a man 
need not be a very large capitalist to do something 
in this line. From $2,000 to |2,500 will be enough 
for an experiment on one quarter-section, and he will 
be surprised at the handsome returns he will realize, 
and the rapidity with which his " quarter " will grow 
into a beautiful farm, and double and quadruple in 
value. And if he cares for such things — as I hope 
he does — he can all the time have the consciousness 
that he is helping some worthy family up to an inde- 
pendent position in life. There are as many open- 
ings for this kind of investment as there are deeded 
quarter-sections for sale, and I have often wondered 
that capitalists of both large and small means, as 
they rode over the broad and rich prairies, did not 
see, and make haste to improve, these golden oppor- 
tunities. No actual residence on their part is re- 
quired. If they wish they can continue to reside in 
their homes in the east, while their Dakota farms go 
on increasing in value, and yielding handsome re- 



IN DAKOTA. 79 

turns year by year. Fuller outlines of this method 
of investment, the reader will find in a former con- 
versation with Mr. Bright on this subject iu the pre- 
ceding pages. 

MY FEIEND SNYDER. 

When I had concluded my conversation with Mr. 
Bright, my old friend, Robert Snyder, came along. 
'' Come and see us," he said, in that bluff, hearty way 
of his, '' and come to make a long visit, for I want 
you to tell me about Dakota, and I know it will take 
you a week to tell me all I want to know about it. 
They tell all sorts of stories about it here, and a fel- 
low don't know what to believe. Unless you have 
changed a good deal since you went out there, I know 
you'll tell me the truth." 

^' What kind of stories do they tell, Rob ?" I en- 
quired. 

'' Well, one side will tell about blizzards, and cy- 
clones, and drouth, and sod houses, and dug-outs and 
all that, and the other will tell about forty bushels 
of wheat, and a hundred bushels of oats, and eighty 
of corn to the acre, and big squashes and turnips and 
potatoes and melons till you can't rest. I want to 
know just how it is, anyhow, whether I ever go there 
or not. And I don't think I will." 

AN ILLINOIS SUPPER. 

And so a few days afterwards we went to Rob's 
and had a grand good time, as everybody does who 
goes there. The first evening, after supper— a gen- 



80 7'OifVs EXPERIENCE 

uine Illinois supper^ too, it was, with tender fried 
chicken, done to a turn, and cream gravy, a big plate 
of broiled ham of Robs own putting up, delicious 
fried potatoes, bread white as snow and light as a 
sponge, butter, the rich fragrance of which you. can 
never forget, coffee with rich, bubbly cream in it 
that made it like nectar, and so on. I mention these 
thmgs to show you one strong reason why a good 
many people don't want to go west. They are 
afraid they can never have such living there as they 
do "at home." They forget that wherever they are 
is " home." 

So that evening after supper we were all gathered 
around the blazing soft coal fire, and I asked Rob 
what he would like to know about Dakota. 

BLIZZARDS. 

" Well," he answered, " tell us about the blizzards, 
dnd the dug-outs, and the forty-five bushels of wheat 
to the acre, and — well, everything." 

'' The blizzerd first, then," I said. "I've not seen 
but one, and that was not one of fhe worst, though 
it was bad enough. First there came a high wind, 
then in two or three hours a heavy cloud, not very 
black, and then the snow, first in scattering flakes, 
and then thicker and thicker. At first I lost sight 
of my neighbors' houses — they were shut out by the 
driving snow — then my barn was hid, and a little 
later I couldn't see ten feet from the house in any 
direction. The snow didn't seem to come down — it 



IN DAKOTA. 81 

just swept past us — and yet plenty of it did reach 
the earth in drifts. Sometimes it would let up a litr- 
tle, and then, as if to make up for lost time, com- 
mence again with renewed fury. And that's about 
what a blizzard is.'' 

"And how long does it continue?" he asked. 

*' From two hours to two days. The one [ have de- 
scribed lasted about a day and a half." 

"Were any lives lost?" 

" No ; people can judge pretty well from the char- 
acter of the wind and the appearance of the clouds,' 
whether there is going to be a blizzard, and so they 
get their stock into shelter, and themselves also. Of 
course if a man should he caught out on the prairie 
in such a storm he would have a hard time of it, and 
some years ago, when houses were far apart, some 
lives were lost, but I have never heard of any since I 
have lived in Dakota." 

" And you've had only one blizzard since you lived 
there ?'' he inquired. '* Why some people think you 
have two or three ever}^ winter." 

"I am giving you my own experience," I said. 
*' Of course we have some cold weather there when 
the mercury gets down to twenty or thirty degrees 
below zero, but this don't last very long, and while 
it continues the air is so dry and still that you don't 
feel it as much as you do here when the mercury is a 
good deal higher. I never knew a high wind to blow 
ifchere while this cold weather lasted." 



82 TOMS EXPKRIESCE 

A DUG-OUT. 

" And what about a dug-out," Rob continued^ 
" What kind of an institution is that?'' 

''Well, we will suppose a man to arrive on his 
homestead with his family, an ox-team and wagon, a 
few articles of household furniture and no money. 
He can't buy lumber to build a house, and so he se- 
lects a convenient hillside and goes to work digging 
into it. A few days' work make a sort of side-hill 
cellar as large as may be necessary for his family, 
with the door in front and the floor on a level or a 
little above the level of the ground outside. He 
manages to get a few poles, lays a foot or two of sod 
around the top to make a place for windows and ven- 
tilation, lays the poles across and covers them with 
prairie grass, and the house is done, except the door 
and chimney. The latter is built of stones and sod. 
Of course a dug-out is warm in winter, and, if large 
enough a family may get along quite comfortably in 
one till they can do better. But they generally get 
out of them as soon as possible. If their house is 
ever so small and humble a Dakota family prefers to 
have it all above ground. And they trenerally can 
if they are reasonably industrious. But this shows 
you the earnest and determined spirit of many of our 
Dakota pioneers. The man who wants a farm of 
his own so much as to be willing to live in a dug-out 
a while in order to get it, is pretty sure to have one 
sooner or later. Many who commenced in a dug-out 



IN DAKOTA. 83 

are now in comfortable houses on their own well-im- 
proved farms. But I don't advise a man to begin in 
a dug. out if he can help it." 

ABOUT BIG CROPS. 

*'Well, what about those big crops out there — 
forty-five bushels of wheat to the acre, a hundred 
bushels and more of oats, five hundred bushels of 
potatoes^ and so on ?" 

" As a rule you want to take those stories with a 
degree of allowance, just as you do the wild stories 
about blizzards and the mercury getting down to 
fifty and sixty below zero. Such crops have been 
raised, there is no doubt about that, but they are ex- 
ceptional. A man may get forty-five bushels of 
wheat to the acre from a few acres of his ground in 
a very favorable season^ and with everything else fa- 
vorable. x\nd I have seen a hundred and five bush- 
els of oats taken from an acre. But if any man has 
secured any such averages from any considerable 
number of acres, I have never seen it or heard of it. 
Now last year I took all possible pains in putting in 
my crops, the season was a tolerably good one, and 
from 90 acres of wheat I got an average of 28 bush- 
els per acre, and from 90 acres of oats 71 bushels per 
acre. I think I had a few acres of wheat that might 
have turned out forty bushels, and an acre or two of 
oats that would have gone very nearly a hundred. 
But the right thing is to take the averages." 



34. TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

THE DROUTH. 

"Aud they tell stories about the drouth out there," 
continued he, " and say that the summers are too dry 
for successful farming." 

'^ Again I will come right down to my own exper- 
ience," I answered. " The annual rainfall is not so 
heavy as it is here in Illinois, and in Indiana and 
Ohio. The official reports settle that. But they also 
settle another thing, and that is this: that our heav- 
iest rainfall comes in May, June and July — just at 
the very time the growing crops most need it. Here 
in Illinois you have a good deal of rain in winter, and 
your heaviest rains are in the early spring months, 
when it can't do the crops any good. One year, since 
I have been in Dakota, the summer was too dry for 
first-rate crops, but there was nothing near a failure 
of crops on account of the drouth. In fact we raised 
what would be called in most of the States fair aver- 
age crops. In some of the States you have heard of 
complete failures from drouth, not one alone but a 
good many of them. But you have never, truthfully, 
heard of such a failure in Dakota. 

" Now, Rob, I am not saying this to induce you to 
go to Dakota, for I don't want you to go. You know 
I'd like to have you for a neighbor, but you own a 
splendid farm and are doing well enough here, and 
had better stay. But you wanted information about 
Dakota, and I'm telling you the truth about it." 

"And do you really like the climate there ?" he 
asked. 



IN DAKOTA. 85 

I 

** Yes, and no. If I could make the climate I am 
to live in, I would have it neither too hot nor too 
cold, too wet nor too dry, but just right. I don't 
like a blizzard, and I would rather the mercury didn't 
get down quite so low as it does out there sometimes 
in the winter, nor go quite so high in the summer. 
And if I could have the rain just when I want it, 
and just enough of it, and never too much, that, of 
course, would be delightful. But we can't have those 
things just as we want them anywhere that I know 
of in this world, and so take it all in all, I like 
the Dakota climate better than I do that of Illinois. 
We seldom have any mud there in the winter, and 
not much in spring or fall. And the climate is in- 
vigorating and healthy. With many persons it acts 
like a tonic. I never knew but one case of chills and 
fever there, and in that case the man brought the 
malaria in his system from New York, and, like some 
of the evil spirits of old, it gave him the worst shak- 
ing up just before it left him, for it did leave him, 
and he has had no sign of the disease since, and that 
was more than a year ago. 

DOES NOT CURE EVERYBODY. 

" Still the climate does not agree with evei7body. 
Some cases of nervous troubles grow worse there : 
the doctors say the air is too stimulating for them; 
but other cases get well. There isn't as much rheu- 
matism in Dakota as there is in damper climates, and 
yet some rheumatic cases grow worse there. The 



^Q TOif'S EXPERIEXCE 

• 

same is true of consumption and other lung troubles. 
A great many recover in that invigorating air, and 
the doctors all tell me that a case of consumption 
never originates there, and I am inclined to think 
that is true, or nearly true. Colds and coughs are 
much less frequent there than here in Illinois. I 
think that is because there are fewer sudden changes. 
It isn t a low degree of temperature that gives peo- 
ple colds, but sudden changes. Yet people do have 
coughs and colds there, and you needn't take any 
stock in that old story that you never hear anybody 
cough in a church or other assemblage of people. It 
is not true. If you go into a crowd you will very 
likely hear sonsebody cough, but not so frequently as 
here. I am not a doctor, but I don't believe much 
in sending people away from home when they are 
sick, unless they have enough money to afford to 
travel a good deal. Florida will suit one, and Dakota 
another, and they can't tell which will suit them best 
till they try, and people of limited means can't af- 
ford to go traveling up and down the country to find 
the place they feel the best in. I know some con- 
sumptives in Dakota who would no doubt be dead if 
they had staid in their old homes, or gone to Florida. 
Now they seem entirely well. No doubt there are 
those in Florida who got well there, but would have 
died if they had gone to Dakota. As I have just 
said, there is no wa}'^ to know about what climate 
will suit any particular case but to try, and I would 
try Dakota first." 



JX DAKOTA. 87 

SOME PEOPLE WHO OUGHT NOT TO GO. 

" I should think," Rob continued, " that you would 
strongly advise every poor man to go to Dakota, as 
well as many who are in good circumstances." 

'\ No, I don't — not by a great deal. Some men 
fail there as well as elsewhere. Some are like a lo- 
comotive: they have a great deal of power in them, 
but they need somebody to direct them; otherwise 
they soon get off the track and smash things. Such 
of these as are on a good track, and have a good en- 
gineer to keep them on it, had better stay where they 
are, because they may not hnd another so good a 
track nor so good an engineer in Dakota or anywhere 
-else. Then there are a great many people in good 
circumstances, from the well-to-do to the rich, who 
ought not to move. Generally every man must de- 
cide thie matter for himself. If he has a wife he 
should consult her, of course, and often her judg- 
ment will be worth more than his, and she will 
give him ' points ' that he had never thought of be- 
fore. 

'' There is no doubt at all that there are thousands 
and tens of thousands of people, in the eastern and 
middle States, who would greatly improve their con- 
dition and their children's by going either to Dakota 
or some other part of the great west. And they are 
going every day. The railroads are full of them, the 
hotels are full of them, and even the great, broad 
prairies are getting full." 



^ TOM'S EXPEHTENCE 

THE PEOPLE WHO ARE THERE. 

"And what kind of people are they, generally?'^ 
he asked. 

" As good a class as you will find, on an average,, 
anywhere in this country. A majority of them, are 
Americans, and they come from all over the north- 
ern States, commencing with Maine and ending with 
Minnesota and Iowa. They are generally wide- 
awake, earnest, energetic people, determined to make 
good homes for themselves and their children in the 
great new west. 

'' You will find plenty of college graduates among 
the men, and among the women are the graduates of 
many of the best female colleges in the United 
States. I have seen a cabinet organ in a dug-out^ 
and a piano in a sod-house, and you will find plenty 
of the best newspapers and magazines in the houses 
of most of those prairie pioneers- Wherever such 
people plant themselves you will see the church and 
the school house springing up almost as soon as you 
see their sod crops showing green above the black 
soil. 

NEWSPAPERS. 

" And the way local newspapers flourish on those 
Dakota prairies is simply a marvel. In one county, 
a hundred miles west of my home, in which three 
years ago there was not half a dozen settlers all told, 
there are now eight weekly newspapers. In another 
town, of not over 600 inhabitants, not long ago 



J A //AAOJA. 8y 

xaw one of the latest improved power })mitiu«; presses 
run by steam, and printing a paper larger than any 
yon have in this part of Illinois. What a luagniti- 
cent population that will be in a few years ! 1 don't 
mean great in numbers, although it will be that, too, 
but great ill the moral power that carries a people 
rapidly onw^ard and upward to the highest and best 
in civilization." , 

AND SATAN CAME, ALSO. 

'' But I suppose you have saloons out there as well 
as churches and school houses," he said. 

'' Yes, I am sorry to say we have. ' And Satan 
came also among them,' was said of a notable gath- 
ering a good many thousands of years ago, and he 
has kept on ' coming' ever since whereyer anything 
good was going on. But you seldom see a drunken 
man. And a vigorous effort is now being made to 
have a prohibitory clause engrafted on the constitu- 
tion when Dakota comes into the Union as a State. 
It may not succeed now, but it can't be put off many 
years." 

''Well, Tom," continued Rob, "you've told me 
more about Dakota to-night than 1 ever knew before, 
and what's better I know it's all true. It wouldn't 
take much more to carry me into a regular fit of the 
Diikota fever." 

EMPHATICALLY NO. 

'' No, Rob, you mustn't take it. If there was any 
way of being vaccinated against it, I'd have you oj)- 



90 To.yrs kxperib:nce 

erated on riglit off. You are well enough off here ; 
you own a splendid farm and have a charming home. 
Your parents are here, and it would be a sad blow to 
them to have you move away. Y^ou mustn't think 
of it. If you have any surplus money to invest, go 
and talk with Sam Bright, and see the scheme he is 
working up to do good and make money at the same 
time. There are openings of the same sort for you, 
without moving away from your pleasant home and 
associations. But see, it is away past your usual bed 
time, so good night." 

" No matter about the usual bed time. We don't 
often have you here to talk Dakota to us. Good 
night." 

SEEKERS AFTER TRUTH. 

And SO it went on from day to day and night to 
night. There was an eager desire among all classes 
to learn the truth about the Territory into which 
people are so rapidly flocking. 

'' We can get circulars and pamphlets and no end 
of other documents," said one, " from railroad and 
land companies and real estate agents, but of course 
they are interested parties, and we don't know how 
much of their stories to believe." 

A CALL FROM A MECHANIC. 

I was deeply interested one evening in a call from 
a Mr. John Harmon, a carpenter. He was a quiet, 
unassuming man, well liked by everybody, who had 
as much work at his trade as he could do, and was 
supposed to be in comfortable circumstances. 



IS nAKUTA. 91 

*' 1 hadn't niiicli acquaintance with you. Mr. Tay- 
lor when you lived here,'' he began^ " but I wanted a 
little talk with you about Dakota, and to ask your 
advice about some things. You see we — my wife and 
[ — have been talking a good deal for a year or two 
back about going out there to try and get a farm, and 
we have heard so many different stories about it that 
we've been afraid to venture. And so when we heard 
that you were back on a visit to your old friends, we 
said we knew that you would tell us just how 
things are, and whether we had better go or not. 
And that's what I've called for." 

"I am glad to see you, Mr. Harmon, and will 
cheerfully give you any information about Dakota in 
my power. But you seem to be well-situated here. 
Are you not doing as well as ever?" 

" Yes, I presume I am." 

" Laying up some money every year?" 

" A little, not very much." 

*' You own the house you live in, I believe?" 

'• Yes, sir." 

'• And have a snug sum laid by for a rainy day, I 
suppose?" 

*' Not very much, sir. You see we concluded to 
buy that property we live in, so as to have a home 
we could call our own, and that took most of the 
savings." 

" But you have something besides that. About how 
much? You know I don't ask out of idle curiosity, 
but that I may be able to give you sound advice." 



;92 TOM'S KXrKfiJKNCE 

*' Certainly, I understand that, sir. We have now 
about nine hundred dollars in the savings bank." 

'* And your property here is worth how much ?" 

" I paid |1,800 for it, and have made a good many 
improvements since. I think I could sell it for 
$2,000, maybe a little more." 

" And you have been in business here ten or twelve 
years?" 

" Yes, nearly fifteen." 

" So that, besides supporting your family, you have 
laid up about $200 a year." 

" Yes, sir, that's about it." 

" And you have generally lived well?" 

*' Yes, sir, we have lived plainly and comfortably, 
but we have economized closely and worked hard, 
and we feel that, somehow, we ought to be getting 
ahead more than two hundred dollars a year. I am 
not quite forty years old, have good health, and if I 
keep it I can do a good many years' work yet. There 
are three or four other mechanics in town who feel 
very much as I do about this matter, and we have 
talked together a good deal about it during the last 
year or so, and had almost made up our minds to go 
to Dakota, when we met with an article in a Chicago 
workingman's paper that rather discouraged us. I 
wish you would read it and tell me what you think 
of it?" 

And he handed me a well-worn paper containing 
the following: 

*' It takes money to start a farm; it takes training 



ry DAKOTA. 93. 

and experience to carry it on successfully after it is 
started; and not all the men in tlie world are adapt- 
ed to farming, any nore than all are adapted to engi- 
neering, painting portraits or preaching. These fel- 
lows who are always advising workingmen to ' go out 
on a farm and become independent,' seem to think a 
a farmer can grow clothing, groceries, wagons, har- 
rows, threshing machines, feeders, sulky plows and 
doctors' bills along with his other ' garden sass/ 
They are mistaken. He can only possess himself of 
these necessaries by exchanging the thing's he can 
produce. Somebody must make the clothing, thresh- 
ing machines, etc., and supply the farmer, taking in 
exchange the products of the farm. If all the cloth- 
ing and threshing machine makers went to raising 
wheat the farmers would have to go without clothes 
and the wheat* would rot in th^ fields for want of 
means to turn it into flour. Are those people who 
advise all the workingmen to go west and get farms 
prepared to show how a poor devil that is barely able 
to buy bread and pay the landlord, can become pos- 
sessed of the $1,000 or $1,500 that is necessary to 
take him and his family out there, put up a shanty 
and support them until a crop can be raised, to say 
nothing of buying tools, wagons, horses and seed? 
Are they prepared to show all the workingmen of 
the cities the exact location of those same rich lands 
that are not already held by railroads or other land- 
grabbers, and to gain ])ossessi()n of which a few hun- 
dred dollars more will be required?" 



94 DAf'.'^ KXVKRIKNdE 

I read this carefully, and when I had finished he 
aisked: 

'' Well, what do you think of it, sir?" 

AN ANSWER TO A NEWSPAPER. 

'' There is a good deal in it that is true, and a good 
deal that is not. The writer of that article puts all 
mechanics in one class, and they don't belong there. 
No two are alike or situated alike. Now I am very 
far from advising everybody to go west; on the other 
hand I advise a great many not to go, and there is 
not the least danger that so many will go that there 
will be nobody left to ' make the clothing, the 
threshing machines,' etc., as this paper says. There 
are plenty of men working at these and all other 
trades who are doing better where they are than they 
would do in the west.. They ought not to go, and 
many of them never will. 

" Then, on the other hand, there are a great many 
who could do much better in the west than where 
they are. Thousands of these have gone and are 
doing well, and thousands of others are going. 0£ 
course some of those who ought to have remained 
where they were have gone, too, and others of the 
same class will go. People don't always get into the 
place that fits them hest, and many who do get there 
don't stay. That man does a good work who helps 
people into the places they can host fill and helps to 
keep them there^ 

" But let us return to vour cnse. You could land 



/A DAKOTA. 95 

in DtLkotu with §3,000 cash in yuur pocket. You 
don't know much about farming, but you have a fair 
knowledge of general business. Now the question 
is, had you better leave a business here that is paying 
you a living and ^200 a year besides, and go to Da- 
kota? Would you be better off there in five years 
from this time than if you staid here? In all human 
probability you would." 

^'Theii, if I should decide to go," he said, "the 
important questions come up, where and when shall 
I go, and what shall I do when I get there?" 

" You should secure a farm, by all means. If you 
don't do that you had better stay where you are." 

'' But I am no farmer. Do you think I could suc- 
ceed on a farm?" 

" You would not need to go to work on it with 
your own hands. You could earn more, for several 
years to come, anyway, at your trade, and hire your 
farm work done. And the same is true of mechan- 
ics in other branches. 

A FARM AND WHAT TO DO WITH IT. 

" Get your farm, if possible, near enough some good 
town for you and your family to live on it, so that 
you can carry on your business in the town. Not 
only there, but in all the country around there will 
be a great deal of building to be done for many years 
yet. And as you were speaking of your friends, 1 
will say that there is plenty of work in those towns 
for goml mechanic-^ of all kinds. But every one who 



96 TO M 'S EXP K K fK N^O E 

Sfoes slKHild aim to i^ret a, farm at once while land is 
cheap. If he can t do that he is just as well off', per- 
haps better, where he is. If he can get a farm, and 
as rai>idly as his means will permit, bring it under 
cultivation, he will soon find himself independent. 
If he can make his home on the farm so much the 
better, for it will save rents, and lie will tind his 
family expenses rapidly running down, as the living 
will be largely drawn from the farm. If he attempts 
to work the farm at first, and never was used to that 
kind of work, he will find it very awkward. It will 
certainly pay him better at first to work at his own 
trade, which he knows how to do, and hire men to 
cultivate his farm who know how to do that work. 

''In your case it might be somewhat different, for 
a man who can drive a plane wouhl soon learn to 
drive a plow. But very generally the mechanic will 
find profit for awhile, anyAvay, in sticking to his 
trade and hiring his farm work done. Gradually he 
can work into it, if he wants to." 

'• But can I get good land near a good town now?*' 

BAILROAl) LAND. 

'' Not government land. But you can generally 
buy deeded land at a fair price. And right here I 
want to say a word in behalf of the land-grant rail- 
roads. I am not in favor of any more land-grants, 
and it is not likel)- there will ever be any more. But 
most of those we have are a great benefit to a great 
nuniy people. They will sell you what land you 



/\ DAKiri'A. 97 

want — an J when' from forty acres u]) — tor a low 
price and a very small payment down, and the bal- 
ance on such long time that any man can pay for it 
out of the crops and scarcely feel it. And now, 
while the government lands are generally taken for 
from ten to twenty miles back from the railroads 
and towns, you can get choice tracts of railroad land 
very convenient to good towns. Then you have from 
the start, and always will have, a good market. Of 
course if you take government land, and in a year or 
two a railroad comes along somewhere near you, 
then you are all right and have saved the cost of the 
railroad land. I say this to you solely in your own 
interest, and not in that of any railroad company." 

"Would you recommend to me any particulai- 
location?" 

" No, there is not much difference. Get as near 
some good railroad town as you can. Generally the 
county seats are the best, but not always, for capital 
and energy sometimes do more for a town than the 
location of the county offices in it." 

CHOICE OF LAND. 

'*Is there much difference in the quality of the 
land?" 

'' Not much, but of course there is some. You 
either want to select your land by seeing it yourself, 
or by having some friend in whom you have confi- 
dence, see it. But as this is to be your home, I 
would advise you strongly to see it yourself. You 



99 TOMS EXPKIilKS'CE 

will sometimes find a tract of thi)i, stony land^ 
while the section or quarter section adjoining it will 
be of the best." 

•' When is the best time to go?" 

" Generally the early spring is best, and most pecv 
pie prefer it. Some, however, go in the fall and put 
in the winter getting ready for the spring work. In 
your case I should say decidedly go in the spring, 
for you would then be there in time to make con- 
tracts for the season's building, and to arrange to get 
some work done on your farm. It would be better 
for you to make a trip before moving your family 
out, to look at the countr}^ and vselect a location. 
Three or four weeks- spent in that way would pay 
well, and you would always afterwards be better 
satisfied with your location." 

^'I thank you for the information you have so 
cheerfully given me. It is practical — just what so 
many of us need, and do not know whei'e to get." 

And so these things went on during all our visit. 
People in every station in life were anxious to learn 
the truth about Dakota. So many wild stories had 
been told them on both sides that they did not know 
what to believe. 

THE CLIMATE AND VERACITY. 

One good old Presbyterian brother, who had been 
diligently seeking information for almost a year, 
(iame to me totally perplexed, and said: "There 
must be something iu the air out there that stimu- 



jx i)AK</r.\. m 

lates men to t-ell exagj^erafced stories on one side or 
the other." 

''.Not at all;' I said. - A successful man any- 
where is likely to take a rosy view of things, and an 
unsuccessful one the reverse. All men who go to 
Dakota are not successful, and those who fail are apt 
to blame the country for it. The truth lies between 
these extremes. The country does offer grand oppor- 
tunities to men of courage and determination. There 
is no mistake about that. But all men do not pos- 
sess these qualities." 

JAMES HARDY. 

T was deeply and sadly interested in the case of 
James Hardy. He was about my age, and we had 
gone to school and played together as boys, and had 
been friends all our lives. He had married a year or 
two before I did, and rented some land on shares 
some two miles from the farm on which I was living 
at that time. He was strictly temperate, clever, kind- 
hearted, and one of the most industrious men in the 
county. He was everybody's friend, and everybody 
seemed to be his. Indeed, 1 don't think he over had 
an enemy in his life. 

But somehow he could never get ahead. The fates^ 
or luck — whatever these things may be— seemed 
against him. He generally had good health himself, 
but if ever he was sick, it was pretty sure to be just 
at the time his crops most need(»d attention . His wife's 
health was poor, and one of his tliree chiM^-oii liad 



100 TOM\^ KXPKniEXCE 

died after a long illness. So, with loss of time, heavy 
doctors' bills and all that; James Hardy made no 
headway. 

DISCOUfiAGED. 

1 met him a few day^ after my return to Illinois, 
and he had a sad, discouraged look, the very opposite 
of the bright, buoyant-hearted boy and hopeful 
young man I remembered so well. He greeted me cor- 
dially, but in a subdued, almost melancholy tone that 
of itself was an index to a heart heavy and discour- 
aged by ill-success in life. 

"I am glad to see you, Tom," he said, '' and glad to 
hear that you have done so well in Dakota. Like 
most of your friends here, I thought you were mak- 
ing a mistake when you went there, but it is clear now 
that we were all wrong and you were right. I only 
wish that I had gone when you did.'' 

" I am very glad to meet you again, Jim," I 
answered. " They tell me you have had a rather rough 
time of it, and I am sorry to hear it, for I know you 
have worked hard and deserved to prosper." 

" Fve done my best," he said, and his voice had 
tears in it if his eyes had not ; " but ever} thing 
seems to go against me, and I am almost discouraged. 
It hardly seems worth while to try any more." 

*• You must not allow yourself to be discouraged, 
Jim," T replied, '' It is ahvaijs worth while to try 
again. You are honest, industrious and "chock full of 
days' works,' and there are better times ahead for you, 
I feel sure." 



IN DAKOTA^ 101 

*' It is easy for a successful man like you to look 
on the brio^ht side of things." 

'* There is nothing remarkable about my success. 
A good many others have done better than I ha,ve^ 
and it is a mistake to think that it hits been all smooth 
sailing with me. Fve had a liberal share of discour- 
agement and bad luck, plenty of hard work, and the 
prospect ahead was gloomy enough sometimes." 

"But you have pulled through all right, and 1 
haven't. And that's what troubles me so. Do you 
think there is any chance in Dakota for a man like 
me?" 

" There is a chance there for any honest, temper- 
ate, industrious man. Understand, 1 do not say that 
all such ought to go there — not by any means. But 
I know you, and know your circumstances, and 
believe you could do well if you were once located 
there on a claim of your own." 

" But how am I to get there, and get a claim with- 
out any money?" 

"You have some money, I suppose?" 

" I wouldn't have a cent if my debts were paid. 
Now, if you can tell me how Fm to get there, secure 
a claim and get started on it without any money, Fm 
ready to go now." 

WHERE there's A WILL THERE's A WAY. 

" You can't. There's no use thinking about that. 
You would need money for railroad fare and land 
office fees, if nothing else. But if a man makes up 



■J02 T<f\rs KXt'KlilK.VCE 

his mind tliafc he will go. and will get through some 
way, he can do jt with very little money." 

*' Well, Fm just in the situation^ and in the state 
of mind to say that, and to do anything honest to get 
a start. As for myself, Fd walk there, and when I 
got on to my claim would live in a dug-out, or any 
other way, if I could only see, somewhere in the 
future, a chance to have a home of my own. But 
while I would be out there, T would have to provide 
in some way for my family. And how a man with no 
money at all to start with is to do that^ is more than 
I can tell. For all that I can see, T shall have to dig 
away here until, by some stroke of good luck, I can 
go to Dakota^ or some other part of the West. There 
seems to be no hope of my getting there very soon." 

A PROBLEM. 

He said this in such a despondent tone that my 
sympathy was aroused more than ever, and I felt 
determined to see if something could not be done for 
him at once. So I said : 

*' The problem seems to be about this: Given, a 
man in Central Illinois, temperate and industrious, 
with a wife and two children, and no money; how 
can they be transferred to Dakota and put in a way 
to get a home of their own?'' 

'^ Yes,'' answered Jim, " that's about the problem, 
and I don't see how it can be solved short of a 
miracle." 

*' Well, let us see. My friend Mr. Bright, when he 



r\ n.iKorA. 103 

was ill Dakota last fall, bought two qiiarter-spctions 
■of land for the piii-i)()se of putting a tenant on each, 
and furnishing them with the necessary means to 
get a start. One of those places would have suited 
you exactly, but he told me yesterday that he had 
engaged both his tenants. Now, do you know of 
anybody else who would invest from $2,000 to $2,500 
in a quarter-section in the same way, if they were 
reasonably sure that the investment would pay from 
20 to 30 per cent per annum?" 

" I don^t know of any one who would be likely to 
do so/' he answered. 

•• Then do you know anybody who would lend you 
from $200 to $300 to start on?" 

" If I could give security the money could be had. 
But how is a man in my circumstances to do that? 
I have no property, and, of course, no credit/' 

" You have the credit of an honest name, Jim. 
Anybody who knows you knows that you will pay 
•every cent you owe, if it is in your power to do it. 
Now^ if you can be put into a position where you 
will have a good chance to get a start and make some- 
thmg for yourself, it seems to me you have friends 
enough about here to furnish you the little amount of 
money you will need to start with.'' 

" But I can't ' pass the hat ' for that purpose, 
Tom. I know I am poor, but I can't go begging as 
long as I can work." 

"' T didn't mean that. Put it on a strictly business 
basis. Tiiereis plenty of money to be had about here 



2Q^ /v/j/-> h'.\ /'/■:/: I hwoE 

at 10 per cent mterest, on good security. Now, make 
a note for §300, payable two years after date, sign it 
yourself, and then see if you can't get five of your 
friends to endorse it. You may count me as one. 1 
think Sam Bright will be another, Squire McCreary 
another, Rob Snyder the fourth, and I guess you can 
find the fifth. It will not be much for each if we should 
happen to have it to pay, and I am sure you have 
four friends besides myself who are willing to take 
that slight risk for the purpose of giving you a 
chance to get a start in life and secure a home for your- 
self and family.'' 

The tears came into his eyes as he took my hand 
and said: "Thank you, Tom; a thousand thanks. 
This is the first gleam of sunshine that has bright- 
ened my future for a long time, and if I only can get 
this chance to work out and up, and secure a foothold 
once more, I will show you and all my friends that Jim 
Hardy is worthy of their confidence, and knows how 
to appreciate a favor.'' 

That afternoon he came to me with a note properly 
made out. He had seen Squire McCreary and stated 
the case to him. 

'' I'll not sign the note^ Jim," the Squire said, 
*' because I don't endorse notes for anybody; but 1 
will lend you sixty dollars for two years on your own 
note, without any security, and you just make the 
other note for $240, get four names to it instead of 
five, as you proposed, bring it to me and I will let you 
have the money.'' 



/.v ItAhOTA. 105 

.1 wonder if the i^^enerous-heartecl Squire ever knew 
what a great hnnleu that little speech lifted off from 
Jim Hardy's heart, and wliat a flood of sunlight it 
caused to fal upon his future. Jim tried to tell him 
but broke down in the attempt, and so left him with 
a few broken words of thanks. 

The balance of the business was easily arranged, 
for Jim's neighbors all had confidence in him. and 
seemed glad to take what little risk there was in giv- 
ing him a lift into better prospects. And Jim him- 
self seemed another man. The sad, discouraged 
expression left his face, and a brightness that was all 
the time ready to break into a smile came in its stead. 
and he seemed, in a single day, to have grown ten 
years younger. 

It was decided that his family should remain where 
they were for the present. " I can live in a dug-out 
or any way,'' said Jim, until I can make things com- 
fortable for them out there, and then I can send for 
them.'' 

Col. Worthington, on whose farm Jim had lived 
for eight years, said they (ioidd have the little house 
and two or three acres surrounding it free of rent as 
long as they wanted it, and he would alSo see that 
they had plenty to live on while they stayed. Jim 
protested at first that this seemed too much like 
making paupers of them, and he could not permit 
that, but the Colonel would not listen to such talk. 
"See here, Jim,'' he said, '" you've worked for me 
mor^t of the time for ei^ht vears now. and tliere never 



lOCy TO MS KXPKRTF.SiJK 

was a time when you liesitated to work late at night, 
or before daylight in the morning, when my interests 
seemed to require it. Now I have the opportunity of 
paying you back in kind, and am going lio do it. It 
will simply be paying a debt I owe you, and there is 
nothing like charity in that, I'm sure. While your 
family remains here they shall want for nothing.'' 

If Jim hadn^t accumulated any mcme}^ in those 
eight years, he had certainly made a good deal of 
capital in the way of true friends. 

AN0THP:K PltOBLEM. 

My problem had now changed somewhat, and could 
be stated as follows: Given, a man in Central Illi- 
nois with a wife and two children, and $300 borrowed 
money, to be paid back in two years, with interest at 
ten per cent; how can he and his family be trans- 
ferred to Dakota, put in a way to get a home of their 
«)\\ai, and repay this money when due? 

■Tames Hardy would follow my advice implicitly. 
Indeed he would look to me for advice, and expect it, 
for some time to come, until he should be fairly 
started and able to take care of himself. Experience 
in a new country counts for a good deal, and \w. 
knew it. If there had been any government land 
in my neighborhood I could have settled the matter 
very easily. But there was none, and with Jim's 
6300 the purchase of a relinquishment was out of 
the question. I could send him out some place where 
government land could be had, but feeling responsible 



/A' DAKOTA. 107 

for his success, I wanted to have him near nae so I 
could render him assistance, if necessary. I thought 
the matter over very carefully, and finally decided to 
have him buy 80 acres of railroad land. There was 
a quarter section near my farm that could be had for 
$5 an acre. I would buy half of it myself and Hardy 
could take the other half. His first payment would 
be $90, and there would be nothing more to pay, 
except a small amount of interest, for two years. 
He would be near a good market, and where I could 
help him if he should need it, and for the present 80 
acres would be enough. If he got able to take more 
land after a while no doubt he could get it. 

I told him what I had decided on as best for him 
to do — told him that by going farther out he could 
get a quarter-section of government land free, except 
the land office fees, and he might possibly get a tree- 
claim also, giving him 320 acres in all — and laid the 
case before him as fairly as I could. H« decided at 
once. 

'' ril take the 80 acres now, Tom," he said. '' It 
will make us a good home — something we've been 
hoping and striving for a long time. After we get 
that if we want more land I presume we can get it." 

WAS IT BEST? 

Some readers will criticise my advice to Hardy, and 
say it would have been better for him to have gone 
out and taken government land. Possibly it might, 
but there would have been some risk in it. The man 



208 TOM'S KXPERIKSCE 

had been " down/' for some years, and had grovvn 
discouraged. He needed some bracing up, and the 
revival of iiis ho|)ef:'uliies.s and courage — he needed 
success for awhile to give him self-confidence. When 
he gets these he can, if he wishes, go out and use his 
homestead and pre-emption rights and get more land. 
The money invested in the railroad land, and the 
work he puts on it, will not be lost by any means, for 
lie will be able to sell, if he should ever wish to, at a 
handsome advance on the cost of the land and what- 
ever improvements he may make on it. Personally 
I felt in a measure responsible for his success, and 
therefore wanted to have him near me so I could ren- 
der him some assistance if that should become neces- 
sary. 

'' Well, what was the result?" I presume a great 
many readers will ask, and I may as well finish James 
Hardy's story hero as anywhere else. 

HOW IT TURNED OUT. 

rt was only last January (1883) that these events 
occurred. On my return home I bought the quarter- 
section of railroad land referred to — eighty acres for 
Hardy and eighty for myself. He came out about 
the middle of April, and was anxious to go immedi- 
jitely to work, but not much could be done at that 
time except to get ready for the spring work. On 
my advice he bought a good yoke of oxen, and in a 
few days had a very comfortable stable for them 
made of posts planted in the ground, ])oles laid ac^-oss 



y.V DAKOTA. lOil 

the top and these covered with straw, the sides also 
being well-protected with straw. The entire expense 
of this was less than $4. His outlay up to this time 
was as follows: 

First payment on land $ 90 00 

Yoke of oxen and stable 109 00 

Breaking plow 28 00 

Feed for oxen 10 00 

Travelling expenses 21 00 

Total ....S253 00 

I arranged for him to board with the^f amily living 
in my tenant house. He commenced his breaking 
early in the season — rather too early, I thought, but 
when I told him so he said: "You know, Tom, an 
ox team is rather sIoav, and 1 want to turn over as 
mudi of this sod as possible this year, besides earn- 
ing some money doing breaking and other work for 
the neighbors." 

A MOONSHINER. 

And I never saw a single ox team do more work 
than his. They w^ere well fed, well cared for and 
well worked. One day, the latter part of May, he 
came to me and said: 

" Tom, I notice you are not using a couple of your 
horses much just now, and I want to hire them when 
you will not be working them yourself." 

"All right, Jim. but what are you going to do with 
them?" 

"I want to tit out another breaking team. 1 can 



IIQ TOM '.s a; X P K li J K .V( ' K 

get one horse oi: neighbor Hurst over there, an«l tliat 
with two of yours will make a splendid l)reaking 
team." 

" But who is going to run it for you?" . 

" Well, you see, Tom, these are beautiful moon- 
light nights — almost as light as day — and T can just 
as well as not run my plow till about midnight if [ 
have another team." 

'' But you can't stand it to work that way, Jim. 
Youll break down.'' 

" Tom, my wife and two children are back there in 
Illinois, in that little house on Col. Worthington's 
farm, and I want to get them out here with me, in 
our own house on our own land, just as soou as pos- 
sible. I can get all the breaking I can do besides my 
own, and it pays well at %Z an acre; but you know 
the breaking season is rather short, so I am going 
to work nights. It will enable me the sooner to 
send for my wife and the children. '^ 

ANKIE AND THE BABIES. 

And for weeks Jim Hardy drove that breaking 
team of his till midnight six nights in tjie week. 
Such a man ought to succeed — and will. He broke 
fifty acres of his own land, and over thirty for his 
neighbors for which he received more than a hundred 
dollars in cash. He planted twenty-five acres of his 
breaking in potatoes, fifteen in flax and ten in oats, 
and at the time I write this, (July, 1883) his crops 
all look well. If \ were troiny: to make an estimate 



rx ft A K or A. Ill 

1 would say he would have over 2,000 bushels ol' 
potatoes^, 175 of flax and 300 of oats, worth alto- 
f^'ether not loss than §800. Of course it will cost him 
<'()nsidera])le to gather and thresh his crops and get 
tlieni to market, but he will still have a handsome 
margin left — euougli anyway to build a comfoi'table 
little house and send for Annie and the babies. 

And there luis been a complete transformation in 
James Hardy since that morning 1 met him in Illi- 
nois. His e\es are bi-ight, his step is elastic, and 
even w^hen he was working from earl}^ morning till 
midnight he never seemed tired. Hope and faith in 
the future have created a new world for him, and 
when his wife and children come I don't think there 
will l)e a happier man in all this w^orld. 

COULD 1 no THAT? 

Other men in the Kastern and Middle States situ- 
ated as James Hardy was, will ask the question, 
''Could /do*as well as he did if I were to go west?' 
In answer I say frankly that no man can tell but 
yourself. If you will do as he did I can see no rea- 
son why you should not. The same soil is there, 
and the same sun that shines and the same showers 
that fall on his fields will fall on yours. 1 have sim- 
ply told you what one man witho-.jt a dollar of money 
actually is dointr, and hoir he is doing it. It is well 
for you to remember that he is very much in earnest, 
and such a man will generally succeed, while another 
less earnest mav fail. And remember, also, that his 



212 rj.\rs KX'rHurKs'rE 

is not an exceptional case: there are hundreds, y>erhap3 
thousands^ of such cases to be found on these prairies. 
I know personally of a great many, and selected his 
because I have been more intimately connected with 
it than with any of the others. 

WHAT A WOMAN CAX DO. 

One mornini^, during our visit in Illinos, Mrs. 
Sanford called to see us. I had known her some 
years before as the wife of a merchant who seemed 
to be doing a good business in the town near by, but 
after his death it was found that there was but 
little left after the debts were paid. She had 
opened a small millinery store, and its profits af- 
forded her and her three children a support. T think 
it was a meager one. and there seemed to be nothing 
better ahead. 

"I came to inquire about Dakota. Mr. Taylor," 
she said, " and to ask if you think there is any place 
out there for me." 

'' There is certainly plenty of room there," I an- 
swered; " but whether it would be best for you to go 
is a hard question to answer." 

" That is the quesbion I want answered," she said. 
" I work hard here, and am barely making a living. 
Busines gets no better, and I don't think it ever will. 
In all that great territory it seems to me there ought 
to be .some place where a woman who is able and 
willing to work can lay aside something from year 
to year tor the tim? when she can no longer work."^ 



7.V D.ih'rr.i. li;j 

" And I presume there is if we knew just when; to 
look for it," I answered. ''What would you like to 
do if you should ^o there?'* 

•'Anything that 1 can do that would alford me a 
prospect of a home of my own sometime. I can not 
do a farmer's work, of course, but 1 was brought up 
on a farm, and if in some way 1 could get a start I 
have thought I might manage a farm, with the help 
of the advice of friends and neighbors. But 1 don't 
know how to take the first step in the matter myself, 
and I came to ask you to show me the way, if there 
is any way." 

" You could not go alone out on the prairie and 
take a homestead and live on it five years. That 
seems out of the question. You would have to make 
a living, and you could not do it there. You might 
take a pre-emption, live on it six months and then 
'' prove up " and get your patent by paying tw^o hun- 
dred dollars. But even then it would be unproduc- 
tive. It is true you might hire some of your neigh- 
bors to do some breaking for you and plant some sod 
crops, and they would pay you something. But this 
plan hardly seems to me adapted to your needs — 
though women sometimes do it and manage to get 
through. But it is a hard life, and I could not ad- 
vise a woman situated Jis you are to undertake it. If 
vou had some friends who were going, and you could 
get a homestead or pre-em})tiou near them, it could 
all be managed well enoui^li. Often the houses ou 
three or foui* cluiuis ure Iniilt iie;ir u corner and with- 



114 r^/i/s EXPh:iiiK\(i: 

in a few feet of each other, so the new settlers get 
along very pleasantly, and situated in this way a lone^ 
woman has no trouble about living on her claim and 
gradually getting it cultivated and realizing an in- 
come from it." 

" But 1 do not know of anybody who is going with 
whom I could make such an arrangement," she said. 

" Then possibly you might buy a relinquishment," 
I suggested. 

" What is that?" she inquired. 

" Well, it is where a man has takeu a claim on 
government land, and for an agreed price surrenders 
it to somebody else. Sometimes these are to be had 
convenient to a good town. Now if you could get 
one of these near enough to some town to enable you 
to carry on your present, or some other, business in 
the town, and at the same time manage to have your 
land brought under cultivation as rapidly as possible, 
it seems to me you would greatly improve your situ- 
ation. Of course such a relinquishment would cost 
a good deal." 

''About how much?" 

'' W^ell, from $300 to $500, and often more, if near 
a town/' 

" But if 1 bought one of these relinquishments 
wouldn't I have to live on it, the same as if I had 
taken it originally?" 

'' Yes, of course. You would simply take the 
place of the person whose relinquishment yon 
bought." 



" F3uT I cou]<l not live on iny land and at the same 
time conduct any busint^ss in town that wonld make 
me a living." 

'* You are not required to be on your claim all the 
time. You could be absent from it tis one is often 
absent from any other home or boarding place. It 
would still be your home, and if you fulfilled tlie 
spirit of the law by improving the land in good faith, 
you would not have any trouble in proving up and 
getting your patent from the government." 

^' But suppose I could get a relinquishment in this 
way near enough to a town to carry on some business 
there, would it be safe for me to depend entirely on 
hired help to do the plowing and all the other work 
necessary to cultivate it?" 

'' I am sure you would have no trouble on that 
score. There are always men there ready to do a 
fair day's work for a fair day's pay. And the people 
as a rule are warm-hearted and sympathetic and 
always willing to give a lift to those who are honestly- 
striving to help themselves." 

"' But would it pay a woman who knew but little 
about farming, to hire all the work done on her 
land?" 

"Yes, generally it would pay well. Of course 
there is some risk in every business operation, but 
after four years experience T consider this as safe 
as any business T know of — in fact much safer than 
the average." 

''In what does the risk consist?" she asked. 



IH^ TO 31 ' s /t' X f a; hi t: s v k 

'' Almost entirely in your getting a fair crop. If 
crops should prove a failure of course whatever you 
had invested in labor, seed, etc.', would be lost. If 
crops were not a failure, I mean if they produced as 
they generally do, yon would realize a return that 
would pay all your expenses and a handsome profit 
besides." 

" Do crops often fail there?" 

" There has been no failure, nor anything like it, 
in the four years that I have lived there. Good farm- 
ing has invariably been rewarded with good crops. 
Of course some years they have been better than 
others, but always good." 

" But, not having a practical knowledge of farm- 
ing myself, how could I know whether the work on 
my land was properly done ? Would I not be alto- 
gether at the mercy of unprincipled men who would 
agree to do the work and then not do it well, and 
then, my crops not being properly put in would not 
yield well, and I would come out in debt?" 

'' There are some men who would take a dishonest 
advantage of you in that way, but not many, and no 
doubt your friends would caution you against them, 
for they are generally pretty well known. I think 
you would have no difficulty in getting trustworthy 
men to do all your work. And by close observation 
you would soon know vourself how the work outfht 
to be done." 

" But the hrst year it would be all outlay and no 
income, would it not?" 



IN DAKOTA. 117 

*'Not necevssarily. You could raise some crops on 
the sod that would pay quite well. You have a son^ 
I believe. How old is he?" 

" Nearly twelve." 

" Well, a stout, active boy of tAvelve oouJd do a 
great deal to add to your income." 

'' I have thought of tryiiifj; to get him a position in 
a store or office." 

"He can do better than that I think, not only for 
the present, l)ut for his future and yours." 

"May I ask how?" 

" By helping in the cultivation of your land. Sup- 
pose that the first year you have thirty sicres of sod 
broken. That would cost you ninety dollars. Y^our 
boy could drop pohitoes in the furrows while the 
breaking was going on. Plant -fifteen acres in pota- 
toes and fifteen in corn. 1 have seen a twelve year 
old boy handle a sod corn planter almost as well as a 
man, and if he knew that he had a small interest in 
the crop he would take pleasure and pride in doing 
the work. These crops need no cultivation after 
they are planted, though it pays to cut down with a 
sharp hoe any weeds and grass that may make then- 
appearance, and to loosen the earth a little around the 
growing corn. Such work your boy could easily do." 

" But when the corn and potatoes were to be gath- 
ered — a bpy could not do that?" 

"No, you would need some help then, but it would 
not be very expensive. And the boy could help a 
good deal." 



'• But would this pay?" 

" Let us see. Potatoes on sod yield from 70 to 100 
l)ushels per acre. If you realized only TO bushels 
the crop on fifteen acres would be 1,050 bushels. 
You could ship these to Minneapolis or St. Paul and 
realize at least 25 cents a bushel for them, probably 
more. But at 25 cents you would receive $262.50. 
Allow $100 for expenses of gathering and marketing, 
and you will have $162 left. If your corn produces 
only 20 bushels per acre, and it would probably do 
considerably better than that, you would have 300 
bushels worth $90 or more. Deduct $20 for expense 
of gathering and hauling to market, and you have 
$70 profit. This added to the profit on the potatoes 
makes $232. Deduct from this $90 that you had 
paid for breaking, and you have still a net profit of 
$142, or nearly $5 an acre on your 30 acres." 

Mrs. Sanford listened very closely to this statement 
and then said: "I am greatly oblige! to you, Mr. 
Taylor, for going so fully into detail about this mat- 
ter. It certainly looks promising, but do you think 
such a result could really be expected, under the 
management of a woman with very little knowledge 
of farming?" 

'' I have known much better results actually real- 
ized, and I have been careful in this statement not 
to make it too flattering. There are, besides, several 
thmgs your boy could do to add materially to the 
income." 

"And what are they, please?" 



l.V ItAKoTA. 119 

WHAT A BOY CAN 1»0. 

''One iu piirticular that I would suggest, is the 
raising of poultry. Get for him fifty to a hundred 
chickens, or even more. The outlay would be com- 
paratively small to begin with,*iind I au^ sure you 
would be surprised at the result. And there is noth- 
ing about the little work needed in feeding and 
caring for them that a boy of twelve can not easily 
do. I have been doing a good deal in that way my- 
self ever since I went to D ikota. more for the pleas- 
ant additions it makes to oar bill of fare than for any 
other profit there might be in the business, but it 
has paid largely every way. We . have all the 
eggs we can use, and also a good supply of choice 
poultry for the table, and have sold enough eggs I 
am very sure to pay all the expense the fowls have 
been. Indeed they take good care of themselves 
from early spring till late in the fall, though 1 am 
careful to see that they always have plenty of food. 
Your boy could easily take all needed care of a hun- 
dred, or even two hundred, and make a nice income 
from them. I have never kept any account of the 
receipts and exp 'nses of mine, but a friend who care- 
fully keeps every item on both sides of the account, 
tells me that his fowls pay him a clear profit of §1.48 
each annually. 

"And there are some other things your boy 
could do that would pay. He might raise lettuce, 
radishes, [)eas, squashes and melons for which he 
could find a good market in tiir village. In fact. 



120 TOM'S EXl'KHIKSCE 

Mrs. Sanford, if you had that quarter section of land 
[ know you would find your • boy's time much too 
valuable to be spent in a clerkship in any store or 
office." 

'^It would seem so from your statemeuts. But 
how shall I get the land? That seems now the most 
difficult thing of all. T can not go out there and 
travel up and down through the Territory seeking 
one of those relinquishments, and I do not know of 
anybody with whom I could f'orrespond about it. 
And so it seems that my way is bloeked at the very 
outset. ' 

'* You might get the addresst^s of reliable real estate 
men in different towns and write to them, and m that 
way get such a place as j^ou want. And in the mean- 
time if I should hear of a place that would suit you 
I will be glad to let you know about it.'' 

•^ Thank you, I am certainly very greatly obliged 
to you for the time you have given me this evening, 
and if you can get a relinquishment for me it will 
be a favor which myself and little family will never 
forget. I do not know how my boy would take to a 
farmer's life, but think after becoming a little accus- 
tomccl to it he would like it." 

HOW TO MAKE HIM LOVE FAKMING. 

'' Permit me to say that you could do a great deal 
to inspire in him a love for it."' 

'^ What course would you suggest?" 

"Give hira from the start some money in'.erest in 



/.V DAKor.i. 121 

the business, so that he will feel himself a partner in 
it. Teach him to keep an accurate acconut of all 
his receipts and expenses. Get for him a couple of 
good agricultural journals. Have them sent in his 
own name and point out to him, and talk over with 
him, matters of special interest to him treated of in 
those journals, as well as other matters connected 
with the farm. Thus you can arouse in him a posi- 
tive love for his work^ which will soon become an 
enthusiasm, and will hardly fail to render him highly 
successful in it. If farmers would generally adopt 
some such course as this with their boys we would 
hear fewer complaints about boys leaving the farms 
and rushing into the towns and cities, and too often 
to ruin." 

" May I ask what it would probably cost me to get 
established in Dakota in some such way as you sug- 
gest?" 

" I can not tell. A relinquishment near enough 
to a town to answer your purpose, would cost any- 
where from $400 up, and then you would need some- 
thing for moving expenses, for Land Office fees, for 
breaking on your claim, and setting up in your busi- 
ness in the town." 

*' r think I could command about $1,500. VVojild 
tliat be enough to start with?"- 

" Yes, I think you could get a ver}^ fair start with 
that. But permit me to suggest here that if yon 
decide to go you shoiild at the same time make up 
your mind to endun* cheerfully any hardships and 



122 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

disappointments that maj^ happen to come to you, 
for they are pretty sure to come in one way or an- 
other. It is not all smooth sailino^ in Dakota any 
more than it is here, or anywhere else. I have en- 
deavored in this conversation to tell you frankly and 
without coloring what you can do there. I have 
tried conscientiously to understate rather than over- 
state the probabilities. But you should understand 
that all this requires work and plenty of it; there 
will be diappointments and discouragements, but if 
you can endure these for a while yoa are tolerably 
sure to come out right at last." 

" I thank you again for all this information and 
advice. If I go it will be with the determination not 
to allow myself to get discouraged, no matter what 
may come. I shall expect disappointments and trials 
of various sorts, and will try and meet them bravely 
when they come." 

Some readers may be disposed to criticise my ad- 
vice to Mrs. Sanf ord, that she should try and conduct 
some business in town while she was having her land 
brought under cultivation. Why not, they will ask, 
have advised her to go on her land at once and live 
there? I answer, because it would not be pleasant 
for a woman with three small children to live in that 
way. She might have no near neighbors, and would 
L,et nothing to live on from the land until some crops 
< ould be raised. If she had some little business in 
iown that would afford her even a small income for 
:i vear or two, it would certainly be a great deal bet- 



IN DAKOTA. 123 

ter than to go at once on the land, even if there was 
a house on it for her to move into. 

And then again, I know of several cases where 
women are successfully doing just what I advised Mrs. 
San ford to do, and the}' are in a fair way to realize, 
in a year or two, a comfortable living from their 
land. One teaches in the public schools, another 
conducts a good boarding house, and another a millin- 
ery and fancy goods store. Neither of these could 
have gone on their claims to live, but have fulfilled 
the requirements of the law, and will soon be able to 
prove up and receive their patents from the govern- 
ment, when they will be the owners of good produc- 
tive farms. 

WHAT MRS. SANFORD DID ABOUT IT. 

And some readers may want to know what became 
of Mrs. Sanford. Well, on my return to Dakota; 
after some inquiry, I found a relinquishment that 
could be bought for $650. There was a little house 
or " shack " on it and about ten acres of breaking. 
I wrote her about it and she decided to take it. She 
came on as soon as she could make the necessary 
arrangements. I think she was a little disappointed 
and a good deal homesick at first. Kingston did not 
look as she expected it. would, being only a new and 
rather raw-looking prairie town, while the broad, 
rolling prairie, she said, made her feel like being out 
at sea all the time. But now she feels more at home. 
With her little millinery store she keeps fancy goods, 



124 



TOM'S EXPEItlKXCK 



stationery and some of the leading magazines and 
newspapers, and from the business she realizes a liv- 
ing — an economical one, I think it is, but she says 
she manages to make ends meet. Her boy is devel- 
oping into a first-class twelve-year-old farmer. A.ct- 
ingon my advice he gathered up a fine lot of chickens 
— about 125 he told me he had a few days ago — and 
frequently sold seven and eight dozen eggs per day^ 
for which he got from $1.00 to 11.25. One week 
his sales amounted to over $10.00. At the time I 
am writing this (July, 1883) they have been here 
about three months, and besides his chickens he has 
fifteen acres each of corn and potatoes, and altogether 
is as enthusiastic a boy-farmer as you could wish to 
see. And it seems to me it is, and will be, vastly 
better for him than to have been a clerk in some- 
body's store, or to have drifted into one of the 
" learned " professions. 

WHAT OTHER STRUGGLING WOMEN CAN DO. 

I have given some extra space to this case of Mrs, 
Sanford's because I know it will be of interest to 
many struggling women who are striving so hard for 
something more than a mere living from day to day 
and from year to year, and who, from their present 
positions can see nothing better than that in the 
future. Do you advise all such to go to Dakota? 
asks some one. Emphatically no — not all. I simply 
tell them what some of their sisters have actually 
done and are doin": here. Thev would not all sue- 



J A DAKOTA. ]25 

ceed; and each must juds^e for herself whether she 
possesses those elements of character which are rea- 
sonably certain to command success. 

Our visit to the old Illinois home was prolon«2jed 
a good deal beyond the limit we had fixed for it. 
There is no limit to Illinois hospitality. But at last 
good-byes were said and we were off, carrying with 
us pleasant memories that will never fade. And the 
Dakota home looked brighter and more home-like 
than ever as we drove up to it one bright, crisp af- 
ternoon in the latter part of January. 

FURNISHING THE NEW HOUSE. 

But pleasant as the new house was, it greatly 
needed some new furniture ai^d carpets. So my wife 
and I spent several days over at Kingston and at the 
county-seat, where a better variety was kept, in mak- 
ing the selections. Such things last a long time in a 
country home, or ought to, and so they should be se- 
lected with care. You don't want a piece of furni- 
ture or a carpet in your house that offends your sense 
of taste and harmony every time you look at it. 
Some houses are full of discords although no sound 
may be heard, and it tires you to stay in them, some- 
what as it tires you to be obliged to hear discordant 
music. In others there is a pervading harmony that 
soothes and rests you the moment you come within 
its influence. 

As in music, I can appreciate harmony — " the con- 
cord of sweet sounds'' — but cannot make it, not being 



126 TOM'S KXPKltlENC.E 

a musician, so in the selection of our furnishinors I 
would have made some most discordant combinations. 
Therefore I turned that work all over to my wife. 
Good taste in such things seems to come natural to 
most women. Men feel the influence of it, but 
could no more produce the same effects than they 
could play one of Mozart's compositions on the grand 
organ. 

Several times I ventured a suggestion, but soon 
saw my mistake, and so left the selections entirely to 
my wife, and when they came together in the house 
everything fit charmingly in its place, just as if it 
had been made for it specially. We men don't know 
how this is done, but most of us can appreciate it 
after it is done. 

The purchases were not needlessly expensive, but 
they were all good and appropriate ; and there is a 
srreat deal in that latter word. When evervthino^ was 
• arranged, each room was in itself a neat and perfect 
picture, and each was in harmony with the others; 
and when it was all done, I am sure our roof covered 
more genuine happiness than is often found in a 
palace. 

My experience is nearly ended. It would be tedi- 
ous and not profitable to go into the details of my 
spring seeding and other work, or to give, as I have 
done several times in the preceding pages, itemized 
statements of expenses. The work is mostly routine, 
and the expenses vary but little from year to year. I 
have endeavored to give descriptions of the work and 



/A DAKOTA. J27 

statements of every necessary item of expense in 
such minute detail that any one can adapt them to 
his own circumstances. 

When I gave my last financial statement, after 
crops were disposed of last fall, it will be remembered 
that they showed a profit of $3,795. From this I 
paid the mortgage, which, with interest, amounted to 
11,551, leaving me a balance of $2,244. Out of this 
of course came the expenses of our trip to Illinois, 
the new furniture, and the putting in of the sprinc^ 
crops. '^ 

T am writing this in the summer of 1883, and can- 
not tell' at this time how my crops will turn out, so 
that T cannot carry my figures any further. They 
look well, but r do not expect as large a yield as I hail 
last year, as the season has not been quite so favora- 
ble. But they will be good unless some calamity be- 
falls them that we cannot now foresee. 

SOME OF MY MISTAKES. 

I have been here four years, and have frequently 
given, not only the methods and results of my work, 
but how they have been attained, and have spoken 
frankly of some of my mistakes. The greatest o{ 
these was "Tom's Folly," and looking back at that 
now I am unable to understand how 1 could have 
been led into it. From my present standpoint the 
whole transaction looks as if I had temporarily taken 
leave of my wits. One of the weakest things about 
the business was making the loan of Mr. Grimsley 



J 28 TOif'S EKl'KlllKXf^E 

for so short a time. It gave me a cliance fur Ofily 
one crop before it came dae, when I could just as 
easily have made the time eighteen months or two 
years, so as to have covered two crops. Had I done 
this I would have had no trouble about it. But as I 
did not like to have a mortgage on tiie farm, I re- 
member thinking I would make the time short, so as 
to have the unpleasant incumbrance removed as soon 
as possible. Having had good crops and been quite 
successful the two preceding years, I felt entirely con- 
fident of my ability to easily liquidate this indebted- 
ness as soon as it came due, and made no allowance 
for accidents, failure of crops, or any other misfort^ 
une. Thus does success sometimes overcome our 
caution and blind us to the dictates of common pru- 
dence. 

Another mistake was commuting my homestead 
and thus literally throwing away two hundred dollars. 
There was some excuse for this in the strong desire 
of most farmers to own the land they cultivate; and 
this is generally a very laudable desire. I was then 
thirty-three years old, had always been a farmer, but 
had never really owned a foot of land, and the wish 
to liave that quarter-section in my own name — to be 
able to call it really and truly mine, without any pro- 
viso of any kind whatever — came over me with such 
power that my better judgment was overcome, and 
the two hundred dollars it would cost to secure the 
patent seemed such a paltry sum as to be contempti- 
ble. If I had stopped there, however, the mistake 



/A' DAKtiTA. 12'J 

Avould simply have amounted to the unnecessary ex- 
penditure of two hundred dollars, which, as I could 
spare the money without embarrassment, would not 
have been a matter of much importance. But this 
mistake opened the way for the other and more seri- 
ous one, for if I had not had a patent for the land I 
could not have mortgaged it, and so ''Tom's Folly'' 
would not have been built, and all the troubles that 
followed would have been avoided. 

Very few readers of this, probably, will be likely 
to fall into just such mistakes as these. Once in a 
while we find a farmer who goes beyond his means to 
erect fine buildings, but the cases are rare. 

SHOKT-SIGHTED ECONOMY. 

As a rule, farmers, especially those in a new coun- 
try, are more likely to run to the other extreme — that 
of a short-sighted, niggardly economy, and of being 
too cautious about extending their business. It will 
pa}^ the fcirmer here, if necessary, to borrow a reason- 
able amount of money to develope his land and make 
it productiye. He has, for example, a quarter-section, 
and his purpose is to bring 140 acres of it under cul- 
tivation, but his means are limited, and therfore he i^ 
compelled to do this quite slowly. This land may be 
called his capital, and being such, it is to his interest to 
make it productive as soon as possible. He is in the 
situation of a manufacturer who has all his capital 
invested in buildings and machinery, which he is 
compelled to allow to stand idle nine months in the 



130 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

year for want of means to buy the raw material nec- 
essary to use in running the establishment. It pays 
handsomely when it is running, but as it stands idle 
so long, the interest on the unproductive capital eats 
up all the profits earned during the time it is run. 
Now a comparatively small amount of additional 
capital would keep the wheels iii motion the year 
round, and so the establishment would earn large 
dividends. Thus the farmer who has 160 acres of 
land, and only thirty or forty acres under cultivation,* 
has about three-fourths of his capital lying idle and 
unproductive. It will pay him to borrow the com- 
paratively small amount of money necessary to at 
once make the balance productive. 

AN ILLUSTRATION. 

We will suppose that he has 100 acres of wild land 
which he lacks the money to bring under cultivation, 
except year by year, as he can do it by his own labor. 
The expense per acre of raising a crop of wheat on 
this, would be as follows: 

Breaking, per acre $3.00 

Back-setting, per acre 1.50 

Dragging before seeding, per acre 40 

Seed, li bushels per acre l.oO 

Seeding, per acre 50 

Dragging after seeding, per acre 40 

Harvesting^ per acre 2.30 

Threshing, per acre 1.40 

Hauling to market, per acre 50 

Total Ill.SO' 



/iV DAKOTA :3l 

An enterprising farmer would mana<<e to do a 
good deal of this work himself, and thus save con- 
siderable of the cash outlay; but suppose he did none 
of it, the above estimate would cover the entire ex- 
pense of raising the crop -and taking it to market. 

He would have to borrow Si 150 to carry the oper- 
ation through in this way, the interest on which, at 
10 per cent., would be $115, total $1265. 

He could safely count on realizing twenty buvshels 
per acre, total 2000 bushels. This, at the low price 
of 85 cents per bushel, would bring him $1700. De- 
duct from this his total expenses and interest, $1265,, 
as above, and he has a profit left of $435. In this 
statement we have credited the land with nothing 
whatever for the sod crops. The prudent farmer, 
who had a loan of 81150 maturing, would not allow 
all of that. sod to lie unproductive. With potatoes, 
corn, oats, and flax, he could make it bring him a 
profit over all expenses of at least $3 per acre, which, 
added to the above, would give a net profit of $735- 
for the 100 acres. The next, and each succeeding 
year, his crop would cost him $3 per acre less, as he 
would have no breaking to do. And by putting in 
his own labor he would still further largely reduce 
the cost. 

In this statement it will be noticed that we have 
taken no account of the increased value of his land, 
which would be equal to $5 an acre, or more. 

The difference between such a loan as this and the 
loan which I made to build ''Tom's Folly" with, is- 



-J 32 TOM\S EXl'ERIESVK 

plain: this would be made productive, while no in- 
ijunie could possibly be realized from mine. 

There is no need of sa3^ing that it is very much 
better for the farmer to bring his land into cultiva- 
tion without making a loan if he can ; but if he can- 
not, it will pay him to make a moderate loan to do it. 

HURRY UP THE BREAKING. 

J wish to urge strongly the importance of making 
the land productive as rapidly as possible, because I 
have seen in so many cases great carelessness in re- 
gard to this matter. Too many men with a rich 
quarter-section of laiid or more plod leisurely along, 
breaking but fifteen or twenty acres of sod each year 
when, by pushing things during the season for that 
-work, they might easily break two or three times as 
much, and that without going into debt. Almost 
without exception my observation has been that the 
most prosperous farmers in Dakota are those who 
have brought their land rapidly into cultivation, even 
where they have been obliged to borrow some money 
to enable them to do it. Make every possible acre 
productive just as soon as it can be done, and then 
cultivate in the best possible manner, and success is 
as certain as anything in the future can be. 

STOCK-RAISING. 

There is another mistake to which I will here re- 
fer. It was that of declining the offer of my friend 
Bright to engage in the cattle business — he to fur- 



IN DAKOTA. 133 

nish all capital required. I could have made a hand- 
some profit out of that business, and the risk would 
have been almost nothing. A herder to take care of 
the cattle could have been hired at a trifling expense, 
hay could have been put in the stack at $1.25 a ton, 
or less, and so the rich prairie grass and this cheap 
hay would have been converted into beef for our 
profit. If Mr. Bright will renew the offer when he 
comes out here this fall I will certainly accept it. 

I throw out the hint now for the benefit of others. 
Many farmers on these broad prairies have friends in 
the east who would be glad to make such an invest- 
ment in partnership with them. It would pay a 
large profit to both parties, and there is practically no 
risk in it. If a lot of hogs should be added to the 
stock the profits would be largely increased, as the 
same herder could attend to them, and there is no 
kind of stock that grows more rapidly into money. 

STOCK-RAISING BY FARMERS COMBININ-G. 

If the farmer has not the necessary capital himself, 
nor a friend who would furnish the means on the 
terms Mr. Bright offered me, several farmers might 
combine and carry on the busiiiess very profitably. 
These nutritious })rairie grasses, now being burned 
every year, could be turned into beef and pork at a 
trifling cost, and so add materially to the income of 
a neighborhood of farmers, who could club totrethoi- 
and raise the required capital to purchase a herd of 
fifty or more — and the more the better — and hire a 



234: TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

lierder to take care of them. I know of an instance 
in which eight farmers combined in this way 
and purchased a herd of over a hundred cattle, 
and they are delighted with the result already at- 
tained and the prospect ahead. They are steadily in- 
creasing the grade of the cattle, and it is their purpose 
to increase the numbers as rapidly as their means will 
permit. This same system of co-operation might be 
adopted by thousands oi Dakota farmers who have 
not the means singly to engage in the business. A 
joint-stock company (no pun intended) might be or- 
ganized in almost every neighborhood, placing the 
price of shares so low as to enable even the poorest, 
to have some interest in it — a herd of cattle pur- 
chased, a herder employed, and the whole business 
managed for the mutual benefit. And how much 
better this would be than burning the prairie grass! 

AN^ OHIO MAN. 

A few days ago I had a call from a Mr. Stockdale, 
of Ohio, who was spending some weeks prospecting 
in Dakota. I spent some time in conversation with 
him, and found him to be a man of more than aver- 
aore intelliojence and a careful observer. In answer 
to his inquiries I told him briefly what my experience 
in Dakota had been, how long I had been here and 
about what my financial condition was. This latter 
item of information is what is generally most desired 
by prospectors, because it is practical. It shows 
what has actually been done, and from that they can 



IN IfAKOTA. 135 

'draw conclusions as to what may be done. ' In the 
course of this conversation Mr. Stockdale said: 

•' Now, if I was sure f could succeed as well as you 
have I would not hesitate a moment about deciding 
to come to Dakota." 

" I do not want to persuade you to come," 1 re- 
plied; '^ but I do not consider my success anything 
remarkable." 

" Haven't you had rather extra good crops?" he 
asked. 

"Better than some, but not better than others. 
But is there any good reason why all the crops airound 
here should not have been as good as mine? The 
weather was certainly not any more favorable to me 
than to everybody else in this region. It never 
rained on my fields when it did not on all mv neigh- 
bors." 

'' Still they can't all make as good a showing, 
financially, as you can. In fact some have got 
ahead but very little." 

''.Yes, that is true. And there are people every- 
where who get ahead but very little. It is often due 
to misfortunes that no human foresight could have 
guarded against; sometimes to mistakes of judgment 
in business affairs, and often to mismanagement and 
neglect of business. With farmers here in Dakota 
want of success is due almost entirely to the latter 
cause, so far as my observation has extended. The 
great secret of success may be embraced in just two 
words — good farming; and the cause of failure in 



23^ TOM'S EXPERJENCB 

two words — bad farming. T make it a point to 
have my work done in the best possible manner. It 
takes longer to do it sometimes, but it always pays." 
'' That is certainly sound common sense," he said;] 
''and still I have a dread of making the change lest I 
should not succeed. As 1 said at first if I was sure 
of the success that you have achieved I would not 
hesitate." 

'' If your land is as good as nii^e — and mine is 
only about the average in quality — and you cultivate 
it as well as I do, can you give any reason why you 
should not have as good crops?" 

'' No, of course I can't. But your house and sur- 
roundings look better than those of your neighbors. 
You must have spent considerable money in these 
improvements." 

'^ No, not a great deal. Of course that new house 
cost considerable.^' 

'' I did not mean that." 
*' What, then?" 

• ' Well, the — the — trees, and — anJ — the — fence^ 
and — the — lawn, and — and — " 
'' Well, what else?" 

" Really, I don't see much else, but there seems to 
be a good deal more.'" 

'' Well, the fence is the only thing 3^ou have 
named that cost me anything except a little work, 
and that you will notice is not at all expensive. The 
trees I planted the first summer I was here and have 
taken care of them since, giving to each tree about 



/-V DAKOTA. jgy 



the same cultivation I would give to a hill of corn 
Ihe havn is nothing but the native prairie sod 
mown and kept in order." 

" Wei!, you certainly have the knack of makin<^ 
tile most of things about you," he added. 

'•I dont think there is any 'knack' about it, 
except that of using one's common sense. It requires 
no special talent or ' knack ' to plant a tree, or build 
a cheap fence like that and paint it, or to mow a 
lawn. 

" While speaking of your improvements just now 
I omitted to mention that vine-covered arbor just 
beyond he house. That adds much to the beauty 
of your lawn and must be a pleasant place to spend 
your summer evenings." 

'' You are mistaken; that's not an arbor." 
" That not an arbor ? What is it then ?" he asked 
with evident surprise. 
•' Only a milk house," I answered. 
"A milk house!" he exclaimed. 
''Yes, and mostly a sod-house at that," I said 
You see, I built a cheap frame, put a good roof on 
It, and boarded up the sides with the commonest 
kind of lumber; then laid up sod around it, just as if 
I were bmlding a sod-house. This I did to ke.p it 
cool. Then my wife took it in hand, and planted 
some fast-growing vines around it; and the result is 
what you see. It is not only ornamental, but is a 
delightfully cool place in which to keep miJk and 



138 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

''Well, you are a genius!'' he exclaimed, " and if I 
thought I could have as beautiful a home in four 
years as you have, I'd be out here with my family to 
stay as soon 'as we could get here." 

" I am not a genius at all," I replied. '' Back in 
Illinois I was only a tenant. We — my wife and I — 
got tired of that, and, against the urgent advice and 
persuasion of our friends, decided to come out here 
and see if we couldn't get a home of our own, and 
cultivate our own land instead of somebody else's. 
You see the result. But it has not been all smooth 
sailing by any means. I guess you can't find that 
anywhere. But we made up our minds to take the 
rough with the smooth, do our level best, and be sat- 
isfied with the result, whatever it might be; and I 
may add that we are satisfied." 

"And you may well be. With three hundred and 
twenty acres of such land as this, and such a home as 
yours it seems to me you are just about as near Para- 
dise as people are allowed to get in this world." 

" I repeat ihat there is nothing remarkable in what 
I have done. Indeed, I lost a full year by that acci- 
dent I told you of. If it had not been for that I 
would have been a good deal better off than I am 
now. You, or any other man who will exercise a 
fair degree of common sense — it don't require any 
genius at all — can do as well as I have done, and bet- 
ter. There is no patent of nobility here — no royal 
road to good crops and consequent prosperity. This 
soil will give up its riches as quickly to you as to me, 



IN DAKOTA. 139 

provided you treat it as well. But it will resent bad 
treatment by a meager return of crops, as a spirited 
man would resent an insult. And trees will grow as 
rapidly for you as these have for me, and vines will 
grow and twine over a plain milk-house and make it 
look like an arbor just as freely for your wife as 
these have done for mine. Understand, Mr. Stock- 
dale, that I am not trying to persuade yoii toc^^me to 
Dakota. I don't know whether you ought to come 
or not, for 1 know nothing about your situation or 
circumstances. I was only endeavoring in what 1 
said to remove from your mind the impression that 
there was any ' knack ' in getting on here in Da- 
kota. There is no ' knack,' nor genius, nor luck about 
it — nothing but plain, honest work, and the exer- 
cise of a reasonable amount of common sense. My 
wife and 1 both take a great deal of pleasure in hav- 
ing things neat and tasteful about us, therefore we 
have them so. It costs but very little work to keep 
this lawn in order, taks care of the shade trees, and 
cultivate the flowers, but if it cost five times as much 
we would do it all the same, and consider it time 
well spent. So far as we know this place will be 
our home as long as we live, and we propose to have 
it as beautiful as we know how to make it. Perhaps 
some day, when we get a little farther along financi- 
ally, we will have a landscape gardener come here 
and lay out ten or fifteen acres around the house, ac- 
cording to the rules of art and good taste. Of course 
some people would consider that a foolish waste of 



J40 TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

money, but with us it would not be so. Money i§ 
only valuable to us for what it will buy for us and 
the good it will enable us to do. and it cannot buy 
anything we would prize more highly than a beauti- 
ful home. Then among the good things we may ac- 
complish is that of instilling into the minds of our 
children a love for the beautiful^ especially for a 
beautiful home. If they have such a home there is 
very little danger of their being led away frojn it by 
the temptations of saloons or other vile resorts that 
lead so many astray. And then, perhaps, those of our 
neighbors who seem to have but little taste for beau- 
tiful surroundings, seeing how easily they may be had. 
and at what little cost of money, may determine to 
make ^/?eM* homes more beautiful, also; and then their 
children will have thrown around them the same ele- 
vating influences, and their love for home will be 
strengthened. So you see that while we are gratify- 
ing our own taste, we may be at the same time doing 
a little missionary work in a quiet way." 

" Yes, that is certainly true, but I never took that 
missionary view of it before. Those trees on your 
lawn seem to have grown splendidly. Do you an- 
ticipate any difficulty in growing timber on these 
Dakota prairies?" 

'' None at all. Every kind of tree that I have seen 
tried grows rapidly here, and in time I believe that 
all these prairies will be dotted over with groves that 
will add greatly to their beauty, and, at the same tune, 
furnish their owners with an ample supply of fuel." 



TJT DAKOTA, HI 

" The fuel question is an important one in a tree- 
less couutry like this. But I think it is being rapidly 
solved — in fact, has been already solved — by the dis- 
cover}^ of immense beds of coal at many places in 
the northern portion of the Territory. Those prac- 
tically inexhaustible deposits will soon be systemati- 
cally worked, and then coal will be sold at every rail- 
road station, and fuel will be cheaper here than it is 
in Illinois. Still that fact should not interfere with 
the cultivation of timber. Every farmer ought to 
have a good grove around his house and other build- 
ings. It costs but little to start one, and in a very 
few years it will add much to the beauty of his place, 
and will afford delightful shade in the summer and a 
valuable wind-break in the winter. And in addition 
to all this it will supply him Avith fuel, if he prefers 
it to coal, and all his fence posts and most of his 
other lumber." 

" All this being true," continued Mr. Stockdale, 
"as it certainly is, I am rather surprised that one 
does not see more groves started on these ])rairie 
farms.'^ 

" You must remember that the country is newly 
settled. Four years ago, when I located here, I had 
but one neighbor in sight. Those who have come 
since are generally in moderate circumstances finan- 
cinlly. and have, therefore, been compelled to raise 
trees from seed, which is cheap, but rather a slow 
process. Most of them, however, are growing them 
in this way, and in a few years they will make a 



j42 * TOM'S EXPERIENCE 

handsome showing. A mistake that many of them 
make is in not procuring trees from five to ten feet 
high to set out around their houses. They could get 
these without much expense, and they would add 
greatly to the beauty as well as the comfort of their 
homes. But you know that men generally, and es- 
pecially those in moderate circumstances, prefer to 
give their time to such work as will bring them the 
quickest profit in cash." 

'^ Yes, that is true, not only here but everywhere; 
and not alone of men of limited means but of all 
men. And while on the subject of profits, may I ask 
what crops, in your opinion^ pay the best m Dakota?'' 

'' Wheat is generally supposed to be the most pro- 
fitable. The famous ' No. 1 hard ' yields anywhere 
from 20 to 40 bushels per acre, and commands in the 
markets the highest prices. It frequently brings 
from 10 to 15 cents more per bushel than the best 
grades of other wheat. It makes the best flour in 
the world, is eagerly sought after by millers and 
grain-buyers, and the demand is always in excess of 
the supply. This being the case, wheat will proba- 
bly continue to be for a long time to come the 'prin- 
cipal crop of Dakota. But I am not in favor of 
giving one's attention entirely to any one crop. I 
believe strongly in mixed farming. In the long run 
it will be found far better for the land and more 
profitable for the farmer. The ' bonanza farmerjs,'* 
as they are called, who cultivate tens of thousands of 
acres, and have a capital of hundreds of thousands 



IN DAKOTA. 143 

of dollars, make large dividends on their capital by 
raising wheat alone. But the average American 
citizen can not be a ' bonanza farmer/ and it is well 
that he can not, for the fewer such farms we have 
the better it is for the State. They are simply specu- 
lative enterprises, and as such are detrimental to the 
development of the highest civilization. What you 
want to know, I presume, is, not what a man with a 
hundred thousand or two hundred thousand dollars 
dollars can most profitably do here, but what are the 
best crops for a man to raise who comes here with 
one, two or three thousand dollars." 

" Yes, that's it exactly," he said. 

" Then, as I said before, I emphatically recom- 
mend mixed farming. The man with a quarter sec- 
tion, a half section, or even a whole section of land, 
is sure to find this the most profitable in the long 
run. Wheat, oats, corn, rye, barley, and flax all 
produce well here and are paying crops, and a farmer 
every year ought to raise some of at least three of 
them. He should also keep cattle and hogs — as 
many as he can take proper care of. And for the 
small expenditure of money and labor they require 
nothing pays him better than poultry. While it 
furnishes a large variety of most palatable and 
healthful dishes for his table, it will bring also 
a neat income to his treasury. The Dakota farmer 
who carries on his business on some such system as 
this, and does his work well, is reasonably sure of 
success." 



i44 TOM'S experience! 

" I thank you, Mr. Taylor," he said, " for the time 
you have given me, and for the great amount of 
practical information I have derived from this con- 
versation. You seem to understand exactly what 
men in my situation, want to know. 

"Perhaps that is because, only a few years ago, 
I was exceedingly anxious to get the same kind of 
information myself." 

And that is the principal reason why I have writ- 
ten this book. I know there are thousands of people 
in the Eastern and Middle States — farmers, and ten- 
ants for other farmers, such as I was; mechanics like 
Mr. Harmon and his friend; widows like Mrs. San- 
ford; struggling, discouraged Jim Hardys, and men 
and women in almost every station in life, who daily 
look wistfully toward the Great West, wondering 
whether there is not somewhere out there something 
better for them than the present hard struggle for 
daily bread, and the ceaseless planning, scrimping 
and saving to make ends meet. How hard the battle 
is that these people are fighting from day to day 
and year to year, none know but themselves — and 
God. 

To help them in their battle for a foothold on God's 
earth, and a home to be called their own, is my main 
object in telling the story of my four years' experi- 
ence, and the stories of other toilers, who, like them- 
selves, knew not what to do until the way was 
Doinfced out to them. . _ , 



IN DAKOTA. 145 

I have tried to make the way plain. 1 would make 
it all smooth and pleasant if that were possible. But 
it is not. There are disappointments, trials, dis- 
couragements here, as everywhere, and sucecess can 
he won only by persevering labor. When it has been 
achieved, it means a home, competence, independence, 
and ought to mean happiness. I have shown how 
success has been attained by others. 

Whether you can win it depends altoo;ether upon 

vourself. . 

There are three other objects which I have had in 

view in this work, nnmely: 

First. To stimulate my brother farmers to make 
their homes more comfortable and bejiutif iil. It can 
be so easily done, and for the little time and money 
required, nothing brings so large a reward. 

Second. To lighten woman's w^ork on the farm. 
The lives that many farmers' wives are compelled to 
lead are little, if at all. less slavish than were those 
of the Indian squaws who dwelt here before them. 
There is something wwse than cruelty in this, and it 
is altogether needless. 

Third. To show the importance of good farmhig. 
In this lies all the difference there is between success 
and failure. Thorough cultivation of the soil is rea- 
sonably sure to be rewarded with abundant crops, 
while careless, slovenly tillage brings only disappoint- 
ment and failure. 

In the years to come, when these broad and fertile 
prairies shall be dotted all over with the homes of in- 



146 TOM'S EXPERIENCE IX DAKOTA. 

tilli<?ent, enterprising' people — as they are sure to be 
— I hope that many farms will be made to yield more 
abundant returns for the husbandman's jlabor because 
of greater care and skill in their cultivation; that 
many homes may be made more beautiful_, and that 
woman's work in them will be lightened and her life 
brightened by the influence of '' Tom's Experience." 



In preparation — ivlll he readij JaniKinj 1, 1883. 



t:e3::e 



)alota He -Boo 



\. 



Containing a carefully prepared description of every 
County, City, Town, Village, Railroad and River in 

Tlie Territory of Dakota, 

The soil, climate, crops, mineral products, social, educa- 
tional and religious progress of the Territory; the 
laws, regulations, and provisions for obtaining 
lands from the National Government and 
the railroads ; with practical 

Advice to Immigrants and Investors 

From jDractical, disinterested men in various parts of the 
Territory, as to the best methods of procedure to insure 
success in farming and other branches of business, accom- 
panied by the latest and most accurate map of the Terri- 
tory. 

This book is being carefully prepared from the latest 
and most trustworthy sources of information, with the 
single aim of making it a truthful and reliable Guide 
to home seekers and investors in the Territory of Dakota. 

Neatly printed and substantially bound in cloth. 

Price, $1. Sent by mail, post-paid, on receipt of price. 

Address, 

MILLER, HALE & CO., Pub'rs, 

Minneapolis, Minn. 



The Leading Weekly of the Northwest. 

The Farmer's Tribune 

OF MINNEAPOLIS, 

Has no superior as a great 

Agricultural and Family Newspaper. 

It is a large eight-page, .ne-column journal, packed with the best 
and most readable material. The news digest and review of the 
world's happenings are thorough, exhaustive and systematic. Its 
information concerning the 

Resources of the ITorthwest 

Is full and trustworthy. Its correspondence from all parts of 

Minnesota, Dakota, and Montana 

(rives. full and faithful descriptions of the agricultural and commer- 
cial interests of this great empire. 

Price.— One year, .f;l.l5 ; on trial, four months, iWc. 

J^°°Send for sample copy. 



THE DAILY TRIBU2TB 

Is the leading Republican journal nortliwest of Chicago. It is an 
eight-page sheet, metropolitan in character, enterprising, versatile and 
fearless. 

Sample copy sent free. A !dress, 

TRaBUNE COMPANY, 

MINNEAPOLIS, MINN. 



EZRA FARNSWORTH, Jr. .1. R. WOLCOTT. 

Union National Bank Buildintf, 

MINNEAPOLIS. - MINNESOTA. 

We have a general Real Estate and Loan business throughout the 
Northwest, and refer io any oi" the banks or leading business houses in 
the city as to our standing antl responsibility. 

We have both had practical experience in farming and in handling 
farming lands throughout 

MINNESOTA, DAKOTA, AND MONTANA, 

And have on our books for sale choice lands throughout the Northwest. 
We cordially commend "Tom's Experience" as a fair 
statement of Dakota farm life. 

We are doing a large and increasing business in 

MINNEAPOLIS CITY PROPERTY, 

And liave exclusive sah.^ of some of the most desirable business prop- 
erty in the city. 

We make a specialty of making investments for eastern capitalists, 
and refer to 

Rostoii National Itauk, - - - - Boston, ITIass. 
llartt'ord Trust Company, - - - llartt'ord, (^onn. 
Parker, Wilder & Co., Boston, ITIass., and New York. 

FACTS ABOUT MINNEAPOLIS. 

Population, 1850, ------- None 

1883, - - 1()(»,0(X) 

Manufactures of all kinds, 1888, - - - - >;43,7o9,49() 

Wiiolesale Trade, including Flour and Lumber. - - 97,0(K),000 

Heal Estate Hales, ------- 18,7(in,'2.-iB 

Building, -------- 8,375,075 

Live Stix^k and Pork Packing, ----- 3,835,000 

Retail Trade, _._---- 30.000,000 

Number of new firms since January 1, 1883, - - - 805 

We solicit corresponrlence or personal interview with all interested 
in the Northwest. 

FARNSWORTH & WOLCOTT. 



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